Forsaken
by Nightowl01
Summary: Olena Wilder is just your average teenage girl, who does normal teenage things. She knows how to kill a person at least fifty ways in hand to hand combat, she's trained in the lethal use of weapons, she knows multiple types of martial arts, and she's very good at killing people, say rogue vampires or her distant cousins from Russia and the Ukraine.
1. Prologue

**_Prologue_**

The light was switched on, there was a sigh with relief as she stepped into her room. Her roommate, Meredith, was nowhere to be found. Chances were, she was still studying for the test in Modern Moroi History tomorrow. The young Dhampir shook her head, putting her backpack on the floor by the door, and putting her books on the nightstand by her bed.

Olena Wilder was only 17 years old. In just another year, she would be a Gaurdian; she'd be the best damn Gaurdian the Moroi world had ever seen.

* * *

Her dark hair, which curled at the ends, swayed as she moved across the room to her bed. She took off her shoes, and grabbed her pajamas from next to her pillow. She had folded them neatly that morning, so she wouldn't have to go digging around for them was she was too tired to do so. She and Meredith kept their room nice and neat, although Olena had a hard time finding things. For some reason she couldn't fathom, she easily found things when the room was slightly messy, but not overbearingly so. She shook her head again, thinking over the day's events.

She'd gotten out of bed at 7:30, just before the sun went down. This was so she'd have time to study for her test the next day. Her grades had been slipping, and she knew that was something that couldn't be tolerated. She excelled more in the training room, then in academics. Olena always had a hard time studying, since her friends easily distracted her; Aleksandyr would always say something that always started along the lines of "Hey, you know that one time when we..." and ended with some heinous juvenile crime that had the two of them laughing theirs asses off. This in turn would completely take her mind off her studies, hence the poor grades.

Olena took a nice warm shower and washed her hair, got dressed in a bright red V-neck and black skinny jeans with a vest and knee-high boots before leaving the dorm. She knew the library was open early, so she decided to take the time to actually get her grades up. Breakfast wasn't being served yet, so she'd have to wait to eat, which she hadn't minded.

That proved more difficult than she imagined. She'd completely not eaten a thing the night before due to mass studying, therefore skipping dinner. _And this morning might not be any different,_ she thought.

With a routine sigh, she'd walked quietly into the building that held her favorite place on campus. Besides the cafeteria, her room, and the pool of course. She quickly lugged her backpack around her shoulder and sat down to work. The Moroi library attendant gave her a queer look when she walked in. Olena simply rolled her eyes and looked away.

Was it so odd to a Dhampir in the library, this early? Olena didn't think so, but she might have said otherwise if she hadn't been the Dhampir. She quietly put in her headphones to listen to music while she studied and got to work.

An hour later, the bell rang for breakfast, and she quickly left the library. She nearly sprinted across the quad and into the cafeteria, running into a wall.

In actuality, it wasn't a wall so much as a person. A tall person in fact. A male. In addition, a dhampir. A tall, male dhampir, which had apparently not felt the girl that just slammed into his back. Olena landed flat on her ass, which earned her a few snickers from the Moroi. She stood up in a huff, and rolled her eyes, gathering her books as she went.

"_Dvigat'sya!_" she said to whoever was still standing in front of her.

"Oh, I am sorry..." a deep voice said. She looked up, having not heard the voice before, but it was so familiar.

Olena furrowed her eyes. "Papa?" she said in surprise.

"What? _Nyet._-" someone answered her.

"Aw, what are you doing here?" someone whined. It was Rose. Olena furrowed her brow. The man in front of her was definitely not a student.

"Oh, Gaurdian Belikov, I'm really sorry. I didn't see you..." she gave him a sheepish grin.

"Man, you're blind. Who's gonna take care of you when you're all old and baggy and wrinkled?" the voice behind her made her frown and Belikov cocked his head as if he was confused.

"You should not speak to dhampir that way, Mr. Ozera." Belikov stated. "Much less a girl."

"Well, if it isn't the royal jackass?" Olena said.

Belikov gave her a stern, yet slightly appalled and amused look. Dhampir weren't supposed to speak to Moroi in such a manner, much less the royals.

Aleksandyr smiled wide, flashing his fangs, and laughed.

"Not only jackass, but royal too. Has a nice ring to it." Olena shook her head. Guardian Belikov shook his head, and looked like he was getting ready to say something when Rose spoke up again.

"Come on, Olena. I'm starving."

"Me too," Aleksandyr put in. He and Rose each hooked an arm around Olena's before the trio moved around the Gaurdian to go find a table.

* * *

That entire day, Olena was steady through her classes. She did her best to pay attention, and not let her mind wander, or let Aleksandyr distract her from her work. The Russian Wilder gathered her things when school ended. She and Aleksandyr made a promise to meet up later to study, knowing training would end about three or four hours after school did. She didn't mind that training always took so damn long, seeing as how they needed to learn how to kill Strigoi. Little did the others know that Olena Wilder had killed a few things in her day, even before she transferred to St. Vladimir's Academy in Who-Knows-Where, Montana.

Olena smiled, thinking of her brothers. Jasha was at least 33 by now, and Rurik was a year behind. She was happy for her brothers, happy that they had gotten married, Jasha to his pretty and reliable assistant Ann Smith, and Rurik to that news journalist from National Geographic, Tasya Hunnicutt. Who also happened to be the lost Dumitru Princess.

Olena smiled to herself. Her family was very eccentric. Dimirtri Belikov reminded her of the way her father could reprimand his children and tell them he loved them in the same breath. Which wasn't hard for him to do when She was running around. Olena shook her head, smiling at good times, but trying to focus on the present. She had a test coming up, and thinking her crazy loving family would just make her miss them a hell of a lot more than she already did (which was saying a lot).

Konstantine always said Olena was his _Printsessa Ekaterina_, his pure princess. The young dhampir smiled at the fond memory of her father, and moved on to the training gym.

As soon as she walked in, like every other day, she was let down. They still hadn't progressed to using stakes. Olena huffed out a sigh, seeing Rose and Mason sparing. She had him on his ass in three seconds. This made Olena laugh and Belikov appeared.

"You're late," he told her. She groaned. If any of them were ever late, they'd have to run laps around the track. And it felt like hell decided to freeze over outside. The devil figured he could take a day off, and not warm the ground the beneath their feet. Olena hadn't bothered switching into her gym clothes.

"How many?" she asked him, dropping her bag on the floor, and pushing it towards the others.

"_Tridtsat'_."

"What?! Thirty?! Are you serious?!"

"_Tridtsat' pyat'_." he answered simply. Thirty-five laps. She never had to run this many laps around her father's land. Moreover, the land the Wilders owned was nearly as large as the school's campus. Olena growled, and turned away.

"I'm going to change."

* * *

Olena groaned as she entered the changing room. She'd been out nearly half the night, and still went to the library to study. On the way there, she'd had an encounter with a group of Moroi.

They'd been out drinking; she'd smelled the booze a quarter of a mile off. The boys came out of the woods, whooping and hollering, like they'd been at a party. Olena had been trained to pay attention to her instincts, the way her father had taught her. If she sensed that something was wrong, she was to avoid the danger at any cost. There was no telling if the Varinski scum would find them or not, and Konstantine had made sure that Olena was never alone when she was younger. Now that she was older, she had been taught how to defend herself if she couldn't get out of a certain situation without being harmed. This was one of those situations.

Olena made a point to avoid the loud group, turning to her right, deciding it'd be safer to take the long route to the library. She'd have to walk around the dorm buildings and go through the quad, but she was fine with that. Having made sure she'd studied the school map, her father tested her on all the exits. She knew where she was going, and she knew how to get help quickly. The dhampir dorm came into view. So did another shouting Moroi.

"Hey, sweetness!" he called to her. The others laughed; two of them were behind her- she didn't need to turn around to hear them or see them... or smell them.

"Listen, Zeklos-" she'd heard that drunken holler numerous times before. She knew where it came from- "I need to get the library. I have a test tomorrow. Let me pass." Olena didn't wait for an answer; she simply stepped around the boy, holding his arms out for her.

"Come on, Olena. Let's have some fun." The stench of the booze wafted around her, making her eyes water. Someone grabbed her ass, and it was game over. How he'd gotten that close to her, she didn't know. Olena simply moved, using her animal instant as well as the instinct the dhampir had taught her. She heard a thud, and a groan.

"Whoa, the bitch dropped him!" someone cried out. She heard movement to her left, and kicked out; her target was one point. That was two down, and two to go.

"Get away from me, Zeklos." she said. Jesse stepped back, not wanting to get hit. She heard another groan. It was Ralf. "Stay down, Voda. You don't want my foot up your ass again," Olena warned. She tried to sound tough, and she figured she did, since Jesse backed up even further, the buzz they had seemed to vanish.

"You're one crazy bitch," the Moroi next to him finally spoke up. Olena had never seen him before. His voice held a deep timbre too it. It was like her father's unmistakably thick with a Russian accent.

"The hell are you?" she growled. Olena could see them all well enough in the dark. He had blonde hair, and she though his eyes might be dark.

"An interested party in this conversation." He leered at her in the darkness, or at least that's what she felt like he was doing. Although, one could hardly say she was showing skin. Olena scoffed and rolled her eyes. _Was this some kid of joke?_ She though. _Could he really be that stupid?_

"Look, I'm not in the mood for you and your horny bullshit. Go to your room, creep."

"Ah, I frighten you, yes?" She looked him up and down; he looked more like he was from the Ukraine instead.

"No, now leave me alone!" she shoved him away before he could make a grab for her, and she twisted around when Jesse stepped closer.

"Sorry, damn! Chill out." he told her. Olena simply turned and walked away.

She heard a deep laugh follow her across the quad. "_YA uvizhu vas skoro, krasivaya devushka._"

Those words made Olena's blood freeze, which made her move faster. She did not say anything; she just made an obscene gesture, which would have had Alto all over her ass if he had seen it. This got her another laugh.

Olena made it to the library without another mishap. She was a bit frazzled from the boy's words. I will see you very soon, pretty girl. His voice had drawled and he said the words slowly like his intentions were clear. Which they seemed to be. They instantly make her think of certain people who happened to obtain skills much like her own, but a far deadlier scale.

"He couldn't be..." she said. Nevertheless, the way he'd looked at her_... Like an animal watching its prey..._ She shook her head furiously. Olena turned her mind to the task at hand: studying for her Moroi History test. She never got why she was taking the class; she knew all there was to know about them in the basic sense. She flipped through the pages of her text book, located the designated chapters that needed looking over, put her headphones in her ears and stared down the book like it was the last thing was were ever going to see.

* * *

Olena turned on the light and sighed with relief as she stepped into her room. She noticed that Meredith wasn't in bed, or anywhere else in the room, which meant she was problem studying somewhere else. Olena checked the clock on the nightstand.

"Ugh..." she groaned. It was nearly seven o'clock in the morning! Everybody was probably into a deep sleep by now, and she was still wide awake! She pulled off her shoes and placed them at the end of the bed. She was probably going to wear them again to tomorrow, as cold as it was.

She still couldn't get that boy out of her head as she moved about the room. His voice was thick, like he had recently learned English, and still retained the thickness of his Ukrainian accent. Olena was the same way, only her Russian accent wasn't as thick around ere as it would be if she were at home. That tended to happen when she was with her family; the Russian Wilder in her came out.

She furrowed her brow, thinking she heard a scuffle outside her door. She was silent for a while, unmoving. When the sound wasn't heard again, she lightly chuckled to herself. "You need some sleep," she told herself. In response to her own words, Olena yawned and stretched, and began pulling her shirt off to get in the shower.

Something was nagging her at the back on her mind, and she paused. Someone knocked on the door, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She sniffed the air, not smelling anything but her own scent, and a bit of Meredith's. Olena was silent, and it was as if the whole world stood still for the next few seconds.

_Knock! Knock!_

Maybe Meredith thought that the door was locked, since it was so late. However, Olena had a feeling... She opened the door, and the hallway was dark. She furrowed her brow, not liking the feeling she was getting. Olena stayed in the doorway, but leaned out far enough to look to either end. The Dhampir stationed at the end of the hallway was gone. She supposed it was his break, although it was a bit unusual to not see someone there. This probably usually happened; she had never stayed up this late before.

Olena shook her head, not knowing what phony excuse to chalk this up to, and closed the door. A chill ran down her spine and froze her blood. The hair on the back of her neck stood up on end, and the room suddenly held a slight stench in the air.

"I told you I would see you again, didn't I, Wilder bitch?" The voice crawled up her spine. She moved away from the door, launching herself toward her intruder. The blonde moved aside as if dodging her was easy. Someone landed a blow to her side, another to her legs, but she didn't go down.

Olena kept a stash of weapons hidden beneath a floorboard in the closet, and under her bed. Three teenagers stood between both her and them. One of them was a Moroi, Sergei Zeklos, if she remembered. He possessed the elemental magic for air.

Her worst fears had come true. Her father's worst fears had been realized. She'd been sent away so something like this wouldn't happen. Therefore, she wouldn't come face to face with the other side of her family, the family that she preferred to never talk about. Olena Ekaterina Wilder's eyes widened.

The blonde had dark brown eyes, dull compared to her slight amber-topaz orbs. Fear rolled off her in waves, and the boy in front of her smiled wide, showing slightly yellowed teeth. He laughed, and his brother and the Moroi joined in.

"I never knew I had such a pretty girl for a cousin. Father will be very pleased when I tell him that I found you. I will enjoy this."

Olena couldn't seem to move as he stalked toward her.

"_Varinski..._" was the only thing she managed to say before everything went dark.

* * *

_**So, I would like to know what you guys thought about this prologue. If you loved it, liked, or didn't like it at all, please be afraid to tell me. The books I'm referencing here are the Darkness Chosen series by Christina Dodd, and the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Meade. Both series are completely amazing. There are plenty or original characters, but there are also plenty of non-original characters. How do you think this will turn out for Olena? And do you think this might have been too much, since it was just the prologue? Please, let me know in your comments! I can't wait to read them!**_

_**~Love, Nightowl**_!

_**P.S. ...THE RAVENS WON SUPERBOWL XLVII! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Just saying... Team pride. (sorry for all the editing).**_


	2. Chapter One

**_Chapter One_**

The darkness was overwhelming. It was cold and harsh, and there was no light to be found. It was silent; not a sound was made. The air was chilled. Nothing moved, nothing could be heard.

Then suddenly, a ringing noise permeated the darkness. It was hard to tell from where it originated, but it was present, filling the air as a sharp sting. The darkness slowly lifted like a fog receding back to a lake. The thick darkness slowly slipped away, and a voice hummed through the air. It was hard to tell if it was one voice or multiple voices, but they were heard. They were low, concerned, and seemingly frightened.

The voices steadily grew louder, coming into focus, but nothing was to be seen. The darkness was still slow in receding…

* * *

The dorm had been quiet up until a few moments ago. Nothing was to be heard, no one was moving about. Meredith Grey moved quietly through the hallways. She couldn't believe she'd fallen asleep downstairs! She pretty much had everything down for the test later on, and she knew she needed to get some sleep. Meredith let her thoughts wander to other things. She was watching Mason in practice earlier; she knew he'd been getting better in his stances. Although, as Meredith had pointed out before in her mind, he still left his right side open. Of course, the Gaurdians had told him that numerous times, and he protected himself more and more, but she still notices weak spots. She intended t let him know later on, when it was time for school, and she'd gotten some hours of sleep in.

Meredith sighed, content with her day. She'd spoken to Mason a bit, which seemed to cheer her up from studying for her test. Even though he called her an overachiever, she didn't mind.

"Every time I see you, you've got your nose in a book," he told her. "Such an overachiever. Words don't protect the Moroi. We do."

"And yet, it's not overachieving when you stake a Strigoi." She remarked smartly, but with a hidden smile.

"Touché," he said. It seemed like he had been about to say something else, but then he spotted Rose across the room, and moved to her side. Why couldn't he look at her the way he looked at Rose? Meredith thought about this all the time. _What does she have that I don't have? _She'd tugged on her shirt, and assessed herself.

_Moderately dressed… Not overbearingly cocky all the time… I respect my elders…_ She shook her head, rolling her eyes. Rose was just a cockier smart aleck version of herself with lower academic scores. Meredith herself wasn't an A student, but at least she could cheer herself up by saying that she was smarter than Rose Hathaway was. She was better at something, at least.

Meredith shook her head. It was late; she didn't have time for her insecurities. She'd save that for the early evening when she got ready for school. Meredith found the door to her and Olena Wilder's room. Her roommate was from Russia, and her accent was slightly thick, but light enough for people to understand her. She'd seen her friend's fumble earlier when school started, slamming into Dimitri Belikov as he spoke to another Gaurdian. Her roommate said something that might have been Russian, and Belikov responded. Meredith thought about what it might be like if Olena and Dimitri had a full-blown conversation in front of the others. She had a feeling that the two of them were so much alike, being patient up until a certain point before letting their Russian blood boil over. A shouting match might be an interesting thing to see between the two.

Meredith turned her mind away from all that trivial stuff, ready to hit the sack. She sighed as she opened the door to the room she shared with Olena, which was oddly ajar. It creaked on its hinged, and Meredith stopped in her tracks.

First, the smell of the room was off. It smelled slightly weird; there was almost a metallic hint to the air, sort of like copper. Second, Meredith didn't like the feeling she got from the open door. Something was wrong- _very_ wrong.

"Olena?" she called out. This was a time when Meredith suddenly wished she had a stake in her hand, and _molnija_ marks on her neck. Meredith cut on the light. The room itself was a mess, but never mind all that. The knocked over computer, and flipped mattresses didn't bother as much as what was lying directly across the room from her.

All she could see was torn sheets and broken glass as she moved about the room. There was no sign of Olena. Meredith set her bag down, looking around, not sure what to do. Did Olena have some type of party, and got drunk? She couldn't smell alcohol; alcohol doesn't have a metallic smell to it. If her guess was right, the room was starting to take on the slightly pungent odor of…

"Blood…" Meredith finished her thought aloud. "Olena?" Where are you?" she called out again, whirling around at a sound that came from the bathroom. Meredith sincerely wished she had a stake to pull out right now. She didn't like not knowing where her roommate was, and she didn't like the fact that the room showed plenty of signs of struggle. _Severe_ signs of a struggle.

Meredith slowly moved towards the bathroom, careful not to make any sounds. Her instincts to be quiet lead her to believe that someone was here in the room. She stepped around the glass of the floor, and made sure to be ready for anything.

She was a step away from the door, seeing her reflection in the mirror, which sat opposite the door. She flipped the light on. She heard a sharp cry and turned to see the sheets across the room shifting. Meredith briskly moved and pushed the sheets aside. Her eyes widened as she stared down at the seemingly broken and bloodied body of her roommate. Olena's face was sprouting bruises and parts of her face were swollen. Her nose was broken, and from what Meredith could of her, her clothes were tattered and torn. Meredith sat still, her hands hovering over Olena, unsure of what to do.

"Olena…?" she called cautiously. Meredith watched her until she made sure she was actually breathing.

_Who the hell would do something like this? Who would blatantly attack a novice, knowing they'd be, as Rose would say, 'well equipped to kick ass and take names'? _Meredith couldn't really believe what she was seeing, and she didn't know what to do.

Olena finally stirred, and Meredith nodded to herself.

"Olena? Try not to move; I'll be right back."

"_Nyet… Vy ne idete…_" Meredith knew enough to scrape together what Olena meant.

"I have to go, but I'll be back. I'm going to get help…" This girl had been attacked, and Meredith was not sure of what to tell her.

"_Ne pomozhet..._ "

"I'll go get help, just hold on." Meredith shook her head. Clearly, Olena was irrational due to blood loss, and possible concussions. Meredith sighed and moved away from her. She left Olena by the sheets on the floor, making sure there wasn't any glass near her before she ran from the room.

Meredith ran to the end of the hall, knowing a Gaurdian would be stationed there. It was Gaurdian Chase. The Dhampir looked up, seeing Meredith running towards him. He immediately stood up.

"Whoa, slow down. Why are you running, and what are you doing out so late past curfew?"

"My roommate was attacked…"

"Wait, what do you mean attacked? How can a novice be attacked?" His eyes widened. "Did you see a Strigoi?!" his face completely switched from scolding to alarmed. Meredith shook her head vigorously.

"No! Just, please, she needs help. Something happened, and she's hurt…"

* * *

The room was silent, but the air was filled with expectancy. It was empty, save the multiple beds lining the walls. Most of these were empty, save one or two. The bed at the far end of the wall, closest to the window (which had its curtains drawn), was occupied.

Olena Wilder lay motionless in the bed. Her breathing was slightly irregular, but that was to be expected. She'd experienced some type of ordeal that had left her unconscious and barely alive. The doctors agreed that she was lucky her roommate found her.

Aleksandyr Ozera had stationed himself next to her bed. Another dilemma was the relationship between the two; they were best friends, true, but still. The two of them were just a bit close for the Guardians' liking. A Dhampir and a Moroi being together was a regular occurrence, but it was still a taboo.

Dr. Olendzki checked the monitors at regular intervals, and made notes.

Aleksandyr had visited frequently, but she had told him that he need not worry; Olena would be fine and once she was awake, she'd tell them how she'd sustained her injuries. For now, Olendzki gave her a small, non-addictive dosage of morphine for the pain they knew she was in.

On examination, the doctor had the sense to order all males from the room, including Gaurdian Belikov and Aleksandyr. He would somehow found out about what happened to the young dhampir and appeared randomly in the infirmary waning to know her progress. Olendzki had told him that he needed to leave, which he reluctantly did.

Olena had multiple lacerations, bruises, and a few broken bones. She had internal bleeding, and multiple concussions. Olendzki knew Dhampir were sturdy when it came to fights, but Olena Wilder was just a novice- one that had yet to be marked; one that had yet to make her first kill. What the Moroi doctor noted was that Olena had fought a damn good fight, having skin and blood under her nails, and tattered clothing. She had barely been covered when Gaurdians Chase and Belikov rushed her into the building. Unfortunately, Olena had been carried directly across campus; the Moroi seemed to have a good view of one frantic Gaurdian mowing down a path from the dorms, shouting for students to move or be potentially knocked down, and a more austere Gaurdian with a worried look on his face carrying Olena.

Dr. Olendzki wanted to be he first person Olena saw when she woke up, so she would not be alarmed by her surroundings, which was another reason to keep checking up on her.

If Rose Hathaway was any indication, the kid was a fighter, and did not like being surrounded by 'creepy starch-white walls and over zealous doctors that always looked like they had bad news for you.'

Olendzki had also done a little blood work, which was common for doctors to do, since dhampir and Moroi risked the chance losing blood to Strigoi or in accidents. Or in this case, random attacked that occurred in the twilight hours of the night when everyone was asleep, and no one heard a thing.

Dr. Olendzki was unsure as to what Olena's blood type was. On her records, she was OA-, the rarest of them all. This meant she could give blood, but had a small chance of receiving any. Yet, the blood work concurred that her blood type was AB, meaning she could receive blood, but could not give any away. This completely confounded the good doctor, she was hoping to do more blood work to set the records straight, no pun intended.

She also needed answers for what happened to the young student. There had been no attacks or anything of that nature before, here at St. Vladimir's. So why here, why now, and why Olena?

The doctor's pager beeped rapidly, sending Olendzki into extreme-doctor mode. She and another in-resident doctor moved quickly to the room. The Moroi saw Dimitri Belikov appear at the end of the hall, briskly walking toward them with Head Gaurdian Alberta Petrov just behind him. Olendzki nodded to them, and turned into the room. Both doctors and Gaurdians stopped in their tracks as they approached the corner of the room.

The curtain had nearly been pulled of the bar, giving Olena the small amount of privacy patients required from others. The heart monitor was going wild, and the Wilder herself was picking herself up off the floor. Olendzki, Dimitri, and Alberta recovered quickly of the shock of what they were seeing. Olena stared at them until her eyes came into focus, and Olendzki made a note to have someone closer to the rooms holding more than one patient.

"Ms. Wilder please, we need you to remain calm," was the first thing the doctor said. The girl slowly moved to get up, and Belikov moved to help her. The dhampir gave a cry and scrambled backwards, using the bed for support to stand up. The other doctor, Dr. Conners looked like the wanted to move, but Olendzki shook her head. He was young; he had much to learn about disoriented students and strange surroundings.

Alberta Petrov furrowed her brow. "Olena, please, we need you to be calm. It is all right, you are safe now. No one is going to hurt you..." She sounded like a mother reassuring her child that there was not a monster hiding under the bed; that there was no boogeyman hiding in the closet. The girl simple shook her head, and the doctors both noticed that she was shaking.

"_Gde ya?_" she said.

"_Vy nakhodites' v lazarete._ The infirmary. Olena, you are safe. We will not hurt you." His words were firm, but reassuring, like Alberta's previous words.

"Olena, its okay. We just want to make sure you are alright. And... We want to ask you a few questions." Olendzki told her. Her amber eyes were wide, and clearly reflected the fear she felt. It was understandable that she be bewildered and frightened; as far as Alberta could tell, no student had ever really been outright, randomly attacked like this before. Not unless Strigoi were involved.

"_Chto..._" Olena started, but she slowly sank down on the bed. Alberta was cautious in moving to her side, but she remained slightly docile, and the Head Gaurdian sat down next to her. Belikov pulled up the chair, and gestured for Dr. Olendzki to sit down. She nodded, and he stood off to the side. Dr. Conners' pagers started and he had a sheepish look on his face.

"I'm so sorry. Pager," he turned to Olena and gave her the standard Moroi smile without flashing his fangs. "I really do hope you feel better. You'll recover from your injuries and by up and about in no time." He smiled again, and nodded to the authoritative figures in the room before leaving.

The dhampir and the Moroi were silent for a minute, but Dr. Olendzki knew they needed answers. She knew there was no use in waiting to ask later; Olena's concussions might have altered her short-term memory for the time being. However, they needed answers now.

"Olena, can you tell us what happened?" she asked her gently.

* * *

**_So, what did you guys think? Having looked at it again, it might be a bit descriptive, not much dialogue. But I was thinking that it might be good to get other characters' thoughts involved. In the Vampire Academy series, there's hardley any mention of Meredith, as a novice, or a Gaurdian. I figured some fans like me might want to see what she would be like, and how resourceful she was. i also thought that it would be sort of cliche if Rose was her roommate, since she was the main character in the series. What do you think? Put your opinions in your comments please, or if you don't want people to be offeneded by your rightful critiscisms (which are much appreciated), don't be afraid to pm me! Bonus question: What do you want to see in the next chapter, and what do you think happened to Olena?_**

**_~ Love, Nightowl01!_**

**_P.S. This story is up on too! My user there is Nightcrawler01. Go check it out and comment there if you want to. And thanks for reading!_**


	3. Chapter Two

**_Chapter Two_**

Olena had woken up, very unaware of her surroundings. Her muscled ached, and her body was stiff; she was in pain, she did not know where she was, and she had no clue as to how she had gotten there. Her father and her brothers taught her that it was never a good thing to not know where you've woken up. She would have to find an exit, quick. Looking up at the white ceiling and looking over at the white walls made her eyes sting and tear up.

There was an erratic beating sound that was irritating the daylights out of her, but she still pushed herself up from the bed she was lying in. Olena sat up with a groan and brushed the hair back from her face. She was in some type of hospital room.

_Nyet__! No!_ She thought. Why was she here?! How did she-

The memory of last night was hazy; nevertheless, it hit her hard. She remembered the instinct to fight, the blood rushing through her veins as she moved, and the pain she endured. Olena leaped from her bed and nearly face-planted; she would have if she hadn't grabbed for the curtain shielding her from the rest of the room.

She had to get out! She needed to leave. The Varinski had found her, and she needed to warn her family without drawing attention to her father's home in Washington. She need to tell her father that she had failed at protecting herself- that she had failed at keeping the Varinski at bay and they'd found her in the remote school they'd placed her in for her protection. She would have to tell her father and her mother that she had made an easy target for herself, being careless and not paying attention to her surroundings.

Olena seeing Dimitri was like being near the Varinski. Her vision was blurred, so she thought he was a Varinski. Olena looked up, seeing four of five figures close to the center of the room. She moved slowly to get off the floor and stand. Her legs felt wobbly, and she managed to sit down on the bed.

"…We need you to remain calm," someone said. Olena furrowed her brow, confused. Why did she need to be calm? She had no idea as to where she was, so what right did this person have to tell her to be calm?

_No,_ she thought. Olena shook her head again, blinking to try and regain her focus. Her vision started to clear up, and all she saw were a pair of hands reaching for her out of the fog in her mind. She had no idea where theses hands were coming from, but she knew they were reaching for her. In her mind, she registered what was happening. She was in some sort of Varinski stronghold, besides the one in the Ukraine._Kak_?! She thought frantically. _How?!_ Olena cried out, rushing backwards, not wanting those hands to touch her. She couldn't remember much of last night, but she was well aware of the potential pain they caused.

Olena moved to put the bed between her and whoever it was that was coming after her. She simply made it to the bed, and managed to sit. She was dizzy from her sudden movements.

She did not see that it was Dimitri Belikov trying to help her.

"Olena…" a voice pushed through the fog. "It is all right; you're safe now…" The voice itself sounded concerned, and she thought it was her mother, Zorana. Olena paused and breathed. If her mother was here... then she had to be at home! Her mother was a commonplace in the household, the thing that held them all together. She was as precious to them as the _kransy__ugol_, the red corner. Cherished and cared for with love.

"_Mat'?_" Olena whispered. "Mama?" her small was small, and her eyes wondered the room until they focused on the person in front of her. She had blonde her, and wise green eyes. Olena knew, from what Rose had said before, that this was Dr. Natalia Olendzki. This was not her tiny mother, Zorana Wilder. She was also Moroi. Olena stilled, but her eyes still burned from the white walls.

"No, I'm Dr. Olendzki; I've been checking up on you. You gave us quite a scare young lady; we are all very concerned about you and misfortune of sustaining the injuries you did." the doctor's voice was firm, but it was also kind. Olena knew the woman was telling the truth. She looked around. She was not at home; she in some sort of hospital. White walls, white floors, the standard pale blue, periwinkle sheets and pillows on all the beds. The equipment was state-of-the-art.

Olena simply nodded. Even a nod made her feel dizzy, so she decided not to move.

"I... We understand that you may not want to tell us anything about what happened, Olena. And we're sorry we have to do this, but we need to ask you a few questions. You may not remember the answers to them later." Alberta Petrov, Head Gaurdian of St. Vladimir's, was sitting next to her. Olena began to nod, remembered the dizziness, and blinked.

"_Pochemu?_" she said. The woman in front of her looked off to the side in question.

"Olena, we need to know what happened to you so we will be able to protect others in case another student is attacked.

_"Atakovat'?_" Dimitri Belikov nodded.

"_Da. _You were attacked last night. Your roommate found you in the corner... And you were unconscious. Olena..._Vy mozhete rasskazat' nam, chto sluchilos'?_ Can you tell us what happened?" The tall Gaurdian spoke calmly and slowly. Olendzki and Alberta assumed speaking in their native language might keep the young dhampir calm. Hopefully, they would not easily frighten her like before.

Dimitri moved to where Olena could immediately see him, which was probably a good thing. No one wanted to speak to a voice that emanated from thin air.

"_Vy mozhete rasskazat' nam, chto sluchilos' _Olena?" Dimitri repeated. She looked up at him with a look in her eyes that Dr. Olendzki could later describe as 'heart-breaking, tear-jerking defeat'.

* * *

_"I told you I would see you again, didn't I, Wilder bitch?" The voice was dark and menacing. Her heart immediately skipped a beat, then quickened. She could not let her fear be shown. She was a Wilder. The Varinskis would not be able to destroy the loving family that __Konstantine__ and Zorana worked so hard to create._

_The voice crawled up her spine. She moved away from the door, launching herself toward her intruder. The blonde moved aside, as if dodging her was easy. She received a hit to her side and a leg tried to unbalance her, but she wouldn't go down that easily. _

_Her weapon's cache did her no good now, tucked up under her bed. She had no way of getting to it without getting past the Varinskis before her. And there was definitely more than one! They had her surrounded; they seemed to have paid attention in that aspect of brawling and ganging up on each other. They always took the low road._

How could this have happened? And so _easily_? How had she not seen the signs, gone with her gut, and made sure she wasn't followed? How could she be such a naive fool?_ The thoughts raced through her head._

_"I never knew I had such a pretty girl for a cousin. Father will be very pleased when I tell him that I found you. I will enjoy this." _

_Three of the four occupants in the room sneered and laughed; two of them more than likely out of fear or ignorance. Sergei simply arched a brow when she glanced at him. The Varinski, Anton, stalked toward her, a dark grin on his face. He obviously didn't mind hitting women, as she later found out. Olena stilled, slowing her heartbeat and not letting her blood rush her into a blood-frenzy and the animal, her Wild side, took over. That was never a good thing; Olena knew that from previous experience. She needed to remain calm. She was very afraid, and for the moment, she couldn't move. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage..._

* * *

The girl before him shook like a leaf in the Russian summer wind. Dimitri Belikov, along with Alberta Petrov and Natalia Olendzki watched the young novice before them. He'd had a feeling she shouldn't have asked her about recent events until she was well enough. Clearly, the girl was not. Dimitri knew, from when he was younger, his mother would sooth him speaking in their native tongue and holding him close. This was before he'd gone to St. Basil's, St. Vladimir's Russian counterpart.

"Olena... _Moe __vtoroe__imu_?" he asked her.

"Ekaterina."

"Pure," he smiled warmly, "Katya, you are safe. We will not hurt you. But we need you to tell us what happened. Do you know who attacked you?" he spoke gently, knowing his tone of voice could sooth her.

She sat there, staring at him. The doctor noted the look in her eyes. She knew, but she didn't want to say.

"Do you know why you were attacked? Why someone would want to hurt you?" he asked her.

"My family is strong," she said. "I was attacked because I..." she was tempted to tell them everything about her family. To spill her guts and every can of beans know to man about the secrets her family, both immediate and extended, knew about the world. Or at least the ones she knew.

The thousand-year-old secret that began as a pact with the Devil himself. It seemed to Dimitri and his colleagues that his coaxing had worked her out of the cloud she was under, but then again...

Olena shook her head.

"_Nyet._ I do not know why." she spoke firmly but softly.

* * *

**_Well, this is the end of the chapter. Trust me when I say that I had as much fun writing this one as you hopefully did reading it. Do you think Olena should have told them a truth? If you've read the Darkness chosen series, then you know what her family's secret is. You also know who the Varinskis are. If you would like to more, try searching the darkness chosen series online, and hopefully, you'll have better luck finding information than I did. I read the book over the summer, except for the last one._**

**_Anyways, What do you think happened to her, and why does she not want to tell? Don't be afraid to criticize or encourage through comments or pms; I'd love the feedback!_**

**_~Love, Nightcrawler._**

**_P.S. So, I found out something interesting about Russian names. They don't have middle names! What they do have, is a patronymic, which means their middle name would be like their father's first name._**

**_This is an example from yahoo. answers. Don't judge my simple-mindedness please.  
Ex. Imya (first name)- Anna  
Ex. Otchestvo (patronymic)- Her father's name is Nikolai, so Anna's patronymic would be Nikolayevna.  
Ex. Familiya (surname)- Pavlov._**

**_So Anna's full name is Anna Nikolayevna Pavlov. If she had a brother named Boris, his full name would be Boris Nikolayevich Pavlov. See the separation on gender?_**

**_P. P. S. You guys... I feel so smart. Trying to learn Russian is heard, but I might be doing it!_**


	4. Chapter Three

**_Chapter Three_**

Aleksandyr Ozera had actually gone to class. He had not gone for the past couple of days, because he was worried about Olena. She had been in the infirmary for a while, at least a week or two. Every now and then, she would say something in her sleep, something in Russian. Varinski. Aleksandyr knew it was a name, he knew he had heard it somewhere before…

He shook his head, his mind wandering again. "Mr. Ozera," the tone of the instructor made it clear that his name had been called more than once.

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention…" he gave the woman a sheepish grin. Being in this elemental class irritated him. Why was he in a class when he didn't have an element? He had yet to specialize, and that made him feel like he had done something wrong. Or maybe something was wrong with him. Aleksandyr shook his head.

He honestly thought there was no point to specialization classes; the teachers didn't teach the good stuff. How to fight using your magic, or how to use to help others, not to just make sure that you could control it so the human never saw you using it if you were in public. Aleksandyr always thought having fire magic was the best thing ever. There was a number of things you could do, from lighting things on fire to….. lighting things on fire. Aleksandyr sighed. What he would give to have the power of fire so he could know what to do with it.

He snorted.

"Is there a problem, Mister Ozera?" He looked around himself. The others were staring at him with questioning looks on their faces.

"Uh…" he murmured. The instructor, Mrs. Connors, nodded.

"I thought so." She said sternly. "you would do well to pay attention, Mr. Ozera. I'm not teaching Specialization Education for my own health." The others snickers, and Aleksandyr could only nod accordingly.

* * *

Aleksandyr was the first person out the door as soon as the bell rang. He hated that class. It made him feel bad about not specializing. Little did the others know that he had a specialization; his own element.

Aleksandyr was a Spirit-wielder. Before she left and turned Strigoi, Ms. Karp had taught him a few things. He could read the auras of those around him if he tried hard enough, and he could get a reading on a person's true emotions. The Instructors claimed that he was just one of the unlucky few who specialized late, but that wasn't the case. He held the power of Spirit, which he thought was alright. He also thought it wasn't nearly as cool as Fire, but he didn't care. The authoritative figures in this school didn't know jack-squat its students. Not entirely.

He smiled to himself as he moved throughout the halls. He saw Eddie Castile and Mason Ashford in the middle of a serious conversation. Aleksandyr nodded to them, giving them the general no-fang smile as he passed them. They saw him and moved toward him.

"Hey, Al-" Eddie started, but Gaurdian Belikov came out of nowhere In his usual fashion of appearing out of thin air. Aleksandyr would have jumped and ran if Belikov hadn't given him a look.

"Olena's condition had improved," he told him. Aleksandyr broke out into a smile, completely forgetting the no-fang rule.

"Is she awake?" His question was answered with a short nod. The tall Russian Gaurdian was stern, but their was a look in his eyes as if he knew something Aleksandyr did not know. It was a cross between concern and something else. Did it have something to do with Olena? There was nothing that Aleksandyr Ozera didn't know about his best friend, Olena Wilder. He all knew as to know about her, from her style of clothing to the fact that she hated tomatoes on certain things, but accepted ketchup and tomato sauce on foods where she knew they couldn't be helped.

"Can I go see her now?"

"You would go even if I told you couldn't."

This was true.

Aleksandyr silently nodded. "Lena's up? That's good," Mason and Eddie came up beside him. Aleksandyr could see that she was like a sister to them, like Rose or Meredith. Speaking of the girl who'd found Olena….

She silently walked past them. Aleksandyr saw her glance at Mason, and quickly turn away. But that wasn't before Aleksandyr saw the slight smile on her face. He couldn't help himself. He stared, getting a reading on her aura: light red, slightly pink. The girl had a crush on Ashford. Which, he couldn't say wasn't slightly obvious.

Aleksandyr turned to the Gaurdian in front of him, turning his attention away from Olena's roommate.

"Thanks for telling me," he said, and nodded. Belikov nodded back, and turned away. Aleksandyr need to see Olena. He'd been a little frantic for the last week and a half for obvious reasons: she'd been seriously beaten, her injuries were slow in healing, which was saying something for a dhampir her age, age she'd been in a mini-coma for nearly twelve days straight. Each time he'd gone to her, she hadn't moved, or anything. Sure, she had made the occasional sound that equated to a cross between a weak whimper and a groan of pain, but still. He would be glad to see her awake.

Aleksandyr's thoughts strayed to that night nearly two weeks ago.

* * *

_He had not talked to Olena since their Moroi History class. Their teacher had reminded them yet again that they had a test the next day, and Olena had been seriously studying lately. He knew she was stressed about the test, yet her grades were well above average._

_Olena had told him she would be in the library studying, but he hadn't joined her. He had received a call from his brother, Aaron, and the two talked for a while before Aleksandyr fell asleep with the phone by his ear. If anything, he felt guilty about not being with her. Even if she was attacked in her dorm, he still should have been with her that night, at least walked her to the dorm, like he usually did._

_That night he hadn't left his room when he'd gotten there after school; he'd had to study himself, and with the phone call and his own studies, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it to the library before curfew. Nevertheless, that hadn't mattered. Aleksandyr never got to the library, and felt it was too late to go anyway. Aleksandyr left the dorm, thinking he could go see Olena before the Gaurdians sent him back to the dorm._

_He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he need to see his best friend. Something told him_ to physically make sure _she was fine. _

He'd been too late, of course.

Aleksandyr's senses told him that he should take the front door of the dorms. He knew a Gaurdian was posted by the door, in case anything happened. _Plenty of good that did, _he thought as he made his way to the infirmary now.

_He moved around the building in the late night, hoping to catch her while she was still awake. He found the fire escape on the south side of the building. He figured in case a fire broke out or a random fire-magic user decided to light up the place to show off how much power they had, the fire escape was installed. He used it to move up to the third floor of the building. It was quiet in the late evening, and the sun would be rising in about seven or eight hours._

_Aleksandyr was sure to be quiet as he entered the building through the emergency window that lead to the fire escape. He made a very ungraceful landing and scrambled to stand up. They're going to install emergency windows, then they should at least put in a step or something, he thought. Shaking his head, and shaking himself off, he closed the window so as not to raise alarm incase someone came by. He felt like a really sleuth as he kept close to the wall, and navigated the dark halls to get to Olena's room._

_Just a few doors down, he stopped short, sniffing the air. The sweet scent of the air made his mouth water. _

Blood.

* * *

Aleksandyr entered the infirmary; Dimitri Belikov was just two steps behind him. Aleksandyr moved a bit faster, his blood getting a rush from how excited he was to see Olena. He needed to physically know that she was all right. Yes, she was beaten, and yes, she would have bruises. Over the last couple of days, some of those bruises grew smaller, but they would still be noticeable.

As he got closer to the large room that Olena was in, his thoughts strayed back to that night once again.

* * *

_He moved closer and closer to the door of his best friend's room. The scent of the blood was strong to him; _How could the dhampir not smell it?_ He thought. Aleksandyr slowly turned the handle and opened the door._

_His knees nearly buckled under him. The smell of staggering, and he couldn't help but feel a little blissful. It also made him… thirsty. _

_His fangs ached, and Aleksandyr wanted to slap himself. He needed to pay attention. the room was a mess: pillows torn, sheets ripped, clothes scattered and the mattresses were flipped and stabbed. Whoever had been here had done what they had wanted to do well. Aleksandyr stood up straight, and closed the door behind him. He hadn't wanted to close it, but he didn't want some random passerby to see him in here… with this mess…_

_He looked down at the floor. Dark stains were drying on the carpet. He knew it was blood- it added to the invigorated scent of the room. Again, Aleksandyr wanted to slap himself. _

_Moving about the room, he stayed quiet, not sure was to say or do besides look around. He saw what he was hoping he really wasn't seeing: a hand under a pile of sheets. He wanted to turn around and leave. He wanted to leave the room, leave the dorm, and go back to his own room and expect to see Olena at breakfast like he did every morning. He wanted to crawl back into bed, and wake up, like this was a dream. _This had to be a dream.

_However, it wasn't. He knew it wasn't._

_Aleksandyr forced himself to move closer. This was the source of the sweet smell that filled the room; the source of his rightfully placed worry. There was Darkness in this corner of the room. A darkness that he knew could not be contributed to the lighting of the room. This darkness a darkness of the Spirit. A black cloud that hung heavy over the pile of sheets and partially over the mattress._

_Aleksandyr slowly sank to the floor, but he forced himself to pull back the sheets._

_Aleksandyr cried out, and remained silent for a while. There were no words for what he was seeing._

_Olena had cuts on her legs, her clothes her torn, and from what he could see of her skin, bruises were sprouting. She wasn't moving, nor was she breathing. He could tell by her stillness..._

* * *

She was laying down, just as she had been before. She wasn't moving, just as she hadn't been before. But she was breathing on her own, that much he could see. Her eyes were closed. What he would give to see those golden orbs, full of the sun's light.

Aleksandyr was reverently silent as he moved to her side. He was quiet, as he had been those twelve nights ago. He silently pulled up a chair and sat down, not saying anything. He could feel Belikov standing close by, although he wasn't sure as to why. Belikov didn't think she'd attack him... Would she?

She hadn't been capable of it that night; she was in too much pain. Aleksandyr had done nothing but held her gingerly in his arms, silently praying that she would open her eyes.

* * *

_Olena Wilder couldn't be brought down easily; she'd proved that by being bruised and battered. She needed to open her eyes._

_"Open your eyes," he said. "Please, just open your eyes..." Aleksandyr buried his face in her hair, which wasn't a good idea since it was slightly matted... with her blood... It looked like she'd taken a blow to the head, but Aleksandyr later found out, from what Dr. Olendzki would tell him, was that she'd put up a damn good fight. _

_Aleksandyr began to rock back and forth, and hummed a song his mother used to sing to him when he was little. when he was afraid of the dark. Now the darkness surrounded Olena Wlder, but she'd be seen in the light again if she just opened her eyes..._

_"Olena..." Aleksandyr called. "Come on, this isn't funny. Just open your eyes..." his voice had dwindled to a whisper, and he hadn't realized that he was silently crying. After a few minutes of trying to wake her up, Aleksandyr layed her back down on the floor, and stared at her._

_He heard footsteps coming from down the hall; it was that quiet in he dorms. Aleksandyr looked around the room, and gently but quickly covered Olena with the sheet again. He kissed her on the palm of her hand, and moved to cut the light off. Kbowing it was too late for him to leave by door, and too high to take the window, Aleksandyr did what any irrational person would do in this situaion. _

_He hid in the bathroom._

* * *

The room was quiet, and neither of them bothered to speak. Dr. Olendzki came by and informed Aleksandyr that Olena had been given some pain killers and a small amount of anesthetic to help her sleep. She might not be up for a few hours.

Aleksandyr wanted to see if this was true. Now that he knew she had woken up, he didn't want to leave her again in case she woke up a second time without his being there. He wanted to be the first person she saw when she woke up.

For a while, Belikov seemed determined to urge Aleksandyr on to his next class.

"They won't miss me," he responded. Belikov would sigh, but simply nod. Each time Belikov asked about Aleksandyr going to his classes, he was adamant about his refusal.

He couldn't leave until he saw Olena open her eyes. She had done it before when he was hiding in the bathroom. She's said something in Russian that he was sure meant something along the lines of 'Don't leave," and "it hurts."

He'd heard her small cries, but he hadn't been able to see her. Not until now. And here she was, asleep.

Aleksandyr desperately needed to have a serious talk with his best friend. He needed to tell her what he'd seen.

He remembered when he was younger, his grandmother taught him and his brothers Gaelic; she was the daughter of Scots-Irish immigrants who worked for the Moroi in the 1940s. He himself knew the language well, and he was hoping to speak to Olena this way. He'd taught her plenty of words himself, mainly phrases and singular words. His Russian was a bit slow, but he knew enough to know her response to what he had to tell her.

* * *

After a few hours, the room was still silent. School had ended by then; Aleksandyr had missed the rest of his classes, but he hadn't cared. He told himself he'd wait for Olena to wake up again so he could talk to her. In actuality, Aleksandyr fell asleep.

The room was slightly chilled, and he had been stressed out all week for good reason. He needed to speak with Olena, with no Gaurdians or doctors present. He didn't know why, but he couldn't let them over-hear his conversation with Olena. And if they did, he'd have to switch languages.

At the moment, both the young Moroi, and the dhampir, were asleep. One due to induced medication, and the other due to formidable amounts of worry, distraction, and stress. Both had been through much in the last week and a half. In addition, it was hard to tell when Olena would be able to get back on her feet again in the non-literal sense (since that had already nearly happened for a brief moment).

Aleksandyr shifted in his sleep, having moved the chair to the side of the bed, and used the mattress by Olena's thigh as a pillow. It was poor posture for his back, but he hadn't cared; he was tired. Aleksandyr had been dreaming about nothing, just surrounded by the darkness that surrounded Olena those nights ago, when he felt something touch him. From what he could tell, the touch wasn't in anger or sadness; it didn't feel like he was going to get hurt. If anything, he felt a sudden relief, and extreme content. The darkness that surrounded him began to dissipate as he opened his eyes. Aleksandyr squinted at the light in he room for a second before opening them fully.

"... would be best if he left." he heard someone say. The voice was deep. Belikov. Why was he trying to keep them apart all of a sudden? A hand moved through his hair, but it wasn't his hand. Having fallen asleep listening to the sound of the heart monitor across the bed from him, Aleksandyr took note of it again.

"Geez, you couldn't snore any louder could you?" said a soft voice. It was raspy and sounded small.

"Well, damn, if I'd known that, I'da left hours ago." he'd suddenly felt bad about that remark. He turned to the side, and was met with a small smile, golden eyes and dark hair. Aleksandyr broke out into a dazzling smile, fangs and all.

"You're one to talk about snoring," he said, sitting up and stretching.

"How did you sleep?" she asked him.

"Don't try and make this about me," he murmured, knowing she was trying to take the obvious attention away from herself. "You scared me, damn you," he whispered.

"I know... I'm sorry." Her voice was... apprehensive.

" ." Belikov was stern. "There is no need for this. needs her rest." Aleksandyr ignored him. He hadn't been there. He had been the first to find her crumpled into the corner like a torn up rag doll.

She ran her hand through his hair again, and it seemed to sooth him. She seemed to know who he felt, somehow. Aleksandyr smiled, then looked away from her. He felt for her hand, but kept his eyes closed. Once he found it, he put his palm to hers; for the first time, he realized how small she was. He opened his eyes and kissed her palm like he had before.

"I don't... look that bad, do I? It's not that bad." she told him in that reassuring way they both knew was a total lie. She was anything but with those bandages covering her arms and neck. He could imagine that they covered her legs as well, and maybe even her torso. There'd been so much blood when he'd seen her last... The heart monitor accelerated for a minute, mainly do to his gaze.

"Not that bad..." he repeated her words and made a short, humorless laugh before shook his head. _Not that bad..._ he thought. The hell is wasn't.

"You... Boys shouldn't cry. Especially the pretty ones. It makes other people sad, and you feel bad for them."

"Only real men shed silent tears," Aleksandyr said. This got his a laugh, followed by a groan.

"You really have a way with words, AleksandyrOzera." he nodded.

"Olena... I really need to talk to you..." He had to tell her what he'd seen and what he'd heard. She had to know what he did.

"Alone," he emphasized the word, turning to Belikov, who stood a few feet away, by the window. He turned his dark gaze to Olena, and she must have nodded because he did the same.

"Fifteen minutes," he told them. "Then she must rest and you must go to your dorm. It is late." With that, Belikov nodded to Olena and Aleksandyr in turn before leaving the room silently. Aleksandyr was sure he'd be just outside the door.

Aleksandyr stared at her, getting a _really_ good look this time. His brow furrowed. Olena was surrounded by shadows. They hung over her like deep clouds full of rain. The shadows surrounding her filled the entire corner of the room. _How is that possible?!_ He thought, his eyes widening a bit. Alarms went off in his mind. _This shouldn't be. It __couldn't.__ The Darkness should be_ gone!

Aleksandyr sat there, staring at her.

"What is it, Aleksandyr?" her own brow was furrowed. She was giving him a worried look. She was worried about in her condition! Such was the way of the Wilders: caring for others when their need was plain. Olena had acquired that attribute from her mother.

The thing that set him off the most was the dark grayness that surrounded her as well, an underlying to the shadows swimming about her. Now that he was looking for it, he could see a lot of it. OlenaWilder was afraid. Afraid of what, Aleksandyr didn't know.

But she was afraid of something. _Very_ afraid. And he intended to find out just what exactly it was that she feared.

* * *

_**Phew. That was a long one. I really hope you guys liked that one. To be honest, I didn't expect tit to be as long. I at least wanted to get Aleksandyr's feelings into this story, so this entire story may be done from multiple viewpoints, like Olena's (obviously), Aleksandyr's, and maybe Rose and others if I decided to not to give them one-liners throughout the story, lol. **_

_**So, do you think Aleksandyr will tell her what he did. Do you**_** know **_**what he did? I feel like I should have put this in the previous chapter, but do you think Olena should have told **__**Dimitri**__** about the Varinski? If so, do you think it will make a difference in the way Dhampir are trained at **__**St.**__**Vlad**__**'s? Don't be afraid to vote/comment! I'd love to hear from you!**_

_**~Love, Nightcrawler.**_


	5. Chapter Four

**_Chapter Four_**

She stood in the middle of her dorm room. It was as if an ambush hadn't taken place just three weeks ago. There were of course, new sheets, new mattresses, a new dresser (which was found to be nearly smashed in the aftermath of the fight once Olena had been taken to the infirmary), and most importantly, the bloodstains had been scrubbed out of the carpet.

Olena was silent as she stood there, in the middle of her room. It was as if the Varinski hadn't ambushed her. It was as if Zeklos hadn't literally pulled the air from her lungs one minute, and gave her too much air the next, while the others watched, the three of them laughing at her impossible suffering. It was as if her pain hadn't been dragged out; they hadn't toyed with her when she'd fought them with everything she'd been taught, and still only managed to take one of them down.

Olena knew he would be back. They'd be back for what she did to his brother. And this time, they wouldn't play with as they did before. Or would they be back at all?

The last thing she really remembered was the air being stolen from her lungs as she lay defenseless, an angry Varinski shouting and cursing her. She remembered that part. Just not what happened after…

She let out a shaky sigh. They wouldn't be back. They thought she was dead; obviously, they hadn't done a good job of double-checking, but she knew the wouldn't be back. They thought she was dead; obviously, they hadn't done a good job of double-checking, but she knew they wouldn't be back. At least she _hoped_ they wouldn't. Olena shook her head and forced those thought to the back of her mind. Right now, she needed to think about her schoolwork. But something told her that she needed to notify someone in her family. Her father would most definitely have her taken out of school. He had placed her there for her protection- yes _that_ had worked out so well for her -and if the bastards from his side of the family had followed her there, how could she be safer anywhere else? Olena shook her head.

She wasn't sure where Rurik was, off on another archeological dig perhaps. She hoped that this time, there would be no explosion, and she and her family wouldn't have to suffer through so many weeks of not knowing whether he was dead or alive. She wasn't sure where Adrik was, either, maybe on his honeymoon with Katherine.

So that left Jasha. Her was her oldest brother, and he had found the first part of the Varinski icon. He was perhaps the only person she could try to get in touch with, her best option at of deciding on she should do since she'd rather not face her father's wrath, or have her family think she was incapable of protecting herself.

_Which you are,_ she thought. _You can't even hold your own against two Varinski boys and a damned air magic-user._

Olena sighed, scolding herself.

"What a joke," she said, shaking her head.

"Not a very funny one, if you ask me." she whirled around. She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she had heard Aleksandyr come into the room. He was sitting in the chair at her desk. Olena shook her head. She sat down on her new bed, which was oddly close to the ones she'd seen in the Moroi dorms. Aleksandyr moved in her peripheral vision, and she quickly turned to him.

She hadn't realized that she was still jumpy. _Then again, who wouldn't be?_ She thought.

Aleksandyr had seen the look on Olena's face, which was sad, and self-pitying. He could read her like an open book, but that wasn't it. He could read emotions through the colors that surrounded her. Her aura seemed to be changing from blue to white, sadness and something he couldn't figure out yet. But the shadows and the grey clouds still hung around her, swarming her.

Aleksandyr had simply stood up, but Olena jumped up and stared at him. Her expression was a twisted one: anger and fear.

"Olena..." he said reproachfully. She seemed to dwindle before him. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just..." she waved her hand, but he knew what she wanted to say. She didn't have to.

"I know," he told her, slowly moving to her side, and sitting down on the bed. He patted the mattress next to his and she sat down with him. "I know, you're scared. And angry. That's understandable. However, you have to remember, I'm here for you. You're not the only one who's scared; you're not alone in this. People are scared too. I hear the Gaurdians talking about setting up a security system, which would make sense."

Olena nodded silently. Aleksandyr noticed that she seemed a little... hungry.

"Do they not feed you people in medical institutions?" he asked her. She furrowed her brow and looked at him.

"I'm just... They fed me, but it wasn't much. the doctor said that it would be understandable that I didn't feel like eating anything..." she sighed and looked around the room. "Question," she said suddenly, her voice full of mock intrigue. "Did you have anything to do with the recent modifications to our room?' she asked him.

He gave her an Ozera grin that only the men in his family could pull off. "My bank account has seemed to slightly... How would you say it... deplete?" she turned around.

"Aleksandyr-" he knew she was going to say something. But hell, it was _his _money.

"No. Shut up." he pointed at her, which seemed to stop her in her mini-tirade. "Just shut up. he doctor said not to get worked up. Just be grateful." She remained silent and standing while he moved. Aleksandyr put his arms around her.

"I'm just glad you're okay..." he said. He couldn't help but bury his face in her hair. "I'm glad you didn't..." he trailed off, his voice getting lost in her curls.

Olena smelled like... well, he wasn't sure what she smelled like. It was a fresh scent, yet wild. This seemed to attribute to her name. Fresh like the air, but wild like the forest that surrounded the campus.

They stood that way for a while, or for what seemed like a while. Olena had closed her eyes, and tried to think of what she should do. In all honest, it felt good to have someone put her arms around her, to have someone to just hold her. She nodded at his words, still silent.

Aleksandyr really didn't want to let her go, but it had to end at some point. He reluctantly took a step back and held her at arm's length.

"Come on, let's go get you something to eat," he told her. "It's about time for lunch… or something.."

"Not exactly," she said.

* * *

The sun had just gone down, but school didn't start for another hour or so. "What? You don't trust my skills?"

"What skills?" she asked as they moved out of the room.

Olena sat in front of Aleksandyr at the table. He watched as she picked at the gauze and bandages on her wrists, hands and neck. He frrowed his brow, then gently but sternly moved her hands away. Anyone passing by would think the teo of them were having some sort of mini-saunce between the two of them.

"Stop it," he told her.

"They itch…" Olena responded by shaking her head. Rose and Mason appeared at the table, settiling down in chairs close to each other.

"Why are you holding hands?" Mason asked dumbly.

"She won't stop scratching… "Aleksandyr said.

As he looked at Olena, he started seeing colors. An array of random lights appeared around the two of them. A bruise on the right side of Olena's face dissipated and seemed to fade away.

"Oh, my God." Lissa Dragomir stood a few steps away, and she stared at Aleksandyr and Olena.

"Is there a reason their holding hands like that? Are you guys dating or something?" Christian spoke in his usually blunt, straight-to-the-point tone. Lissa shook her head.

The last Dragomir, Princess VasilisaDragomir, gave the two of them her wide-eyed jaden gaze.

"What is-" Rose started, but stopped. She sat, wide-eyed too. "Oh my…" she didn't seem to have the words for it this time.

So, she can see the lights too, Olena thought as she looked around. It was utterly amazing, and completely captivating. There were no words for the beauty that surrounded her and Aleksandyr. His electric eyes were wide with shock (pun slightly intended). He let out an awed laugh.

"I really don't see what's so funny," Christian said as he and Lissa sat down.

"You've seen the lights before. I know you have." It was an indication about what had happened earlier in the year, when Lissa had been kidnapped by her uncle, Viktor Dashkov. The Moroi had his own daughter turn Strigoi, and Olena didn't even know why.

Christian nodded, remembering how he'd snuck into the truck that Dimitri, Alberta, and Rose had gotten into. He'd stowed away in the back and hadn't come out of hiding until they were well on their way to the old house/cabin that Viktor had Lissa in. His back had been clawed and torn by the Psi Hounds that were unlike any type of hounds they had seen. Initially, Christian had been close to death, until Lissa saved him.

Aleksandyr nodded at his distant cousin. "Its…" he shook his head, not having words for it.

"_Krasivyy…_" Olena breathed, looking around at the lights that neither Mason nor Christian could see.

"… Well, I don't know gibberish, but I think she just said, 'Ooh, lights! So bright!'" Christian said with a chuckled. Lissa smirked, but made a half smile.

Aleksandyr stared at Olena, and soon enough, the darkness returned as the lights began abating. The shadows were thick in rising, like night was rushing to overpower the light of day. He abruptly let go of her hand.

"You should be fine now." Aleksandyr stated. There was an awkward silence as Olena recovered from what she had seen. She sat and stared as Aleksandyr suddenly got up, and left the table. They all watched him as he drifted about the cafeteria for a moment before finally leaving. His icy eyes, an attribute distinctly reserved for those of the Ozera clan, flicked to Olena- and then he was gone.

"What just…"

"I don't know." Christian spoke as if the answer to Olena's question was obvious. She turned to glare at him. "Whoa, death-stare." He said in mock fear.

"If only I could threaten you, then beat you to a pulp."

"Well, I'd light you up like a Christmas tree before then."

"Bring it, Sparky." Olena challenged, using Rose's nickname for the Fire user. Lissa shook her head. Olena heard her saying something, but she wasn't exactly paying attention. She simply felt, well, confused. She was unsure of what to do. Why had Aleksandyr left such an abrupt way, like he was suddenly in a hurry? And what were those lights?

Did they have to do with what Aleksandyr had told her? He had told her that he knew he was a Spirit-wielder, but he didn't know the extent of his power. Aleksandyr had told Olena that he was able to read people.

_"Read people? As in their minds?" she asked him as she tried to sit up in her bed. She was still in the infirmary, but no longer for intensive care. _

_"No… Feelings… But it's really hard to see you." She had given him a quizzical look. Aleksandyr sighed, trying to figure out a way to tell Olena that she was… well, _undead. _She wasn't Strigoi, or some zombie; she was a living, breathing being. However, Aleksandyr knew what she was. He knew what he had seen, what he smelled, and what he felt. Or didn't feel. Aleksandyr had held her in his arms and she _was not breathing.

_There was no way to make that a conversation. Not in a normal way. _What could he possibly say? _"Oh, I found you dead in your room." Or, "The thing is, you were dead, but I saved you."_

_There was no good way to say that. Therefore, he settled for the partial truth, thus, leaving her in the dark about what she really was, and what he had done. _

_"You're dark," he'd told her simply. "Surrounded by… darkness, and shadows. But... I also see grey."_

_"Grey?" she questioned. He nodded, his icy eyes avoiding hers. _

_"I know... that you're afraid of something. You can tell me..." she stared at him. "Or not," he blanched. She scoffed, and made like she was going to laugh, but Aleksandyr knew her too well. The grey clouds surrounding her increased._

_"I'm afraid of getting my ass kicked again, if that's what you mean..." she trailed off, not looking at him._

_Now it was her turn to fall silent. _

_"I..." she shook her head, not bothering to say anymore._

_"I know, you were practically jumped and nearly beaten to-" he couldn't even say the word. Nearly should have been excluded from that sentence, but he shook his head and continued. "Look, I know you're scared. I'm scared for you too."_

They had both known that conversation wasn't over.

Olena sat silently, eating her lunch as her mind had wandered in thought. She was wrapped in her own self-depreciating thoughts when Rose spoke to her.

"Hey, you know we've got your back, right?" The others fell silent, and turned to look at her. Olena could do nothing but nod in surprise.

"We'll figure out what happened; I'm sure it won't take Petrov long to find the guy. This had never happened before, and I'm sure Dimitri will come up with something." Olena nodded to all of this, not saying anything. Her hand had a mind of it's own as it moved to her neck.

There was more than _one_ guy; three in fact, but Olena didn't say anything. Sergej's face to mind. It was clouded with fear and deep regret. She'd only been able to look at him before Anton and Oleg drew her attention to them. He had contributed to her attack, however.

When she killed Oleg, Sergej had been slowly depleting her air. She had noted it when she was trying to take down Anton. Slowly, Olena's lungs were constricting, until she seriously had a hard time drawing the air back into her lungs. Olena couldn't stop because she was fighting off Anton, so she was helpless when it came to Sergej.

She had always hated the Dhampir rule that their Moroi were always to be protected.

Olena had worn Anton down, but of course, that was no good; he just kept coming at her. Suddenly, the small amount of air that she was fighting to keep in her lungs was stolen away from her. This brought her to her knees in seconds. She could feel her lungs burning for oxygen, but it was no use; _she could not breathe._

* * *

_Anton had used that opportunity to hit her where it had definitely hurt: he kicked her in the face. She would have told her that was a low blow, but Sergej decided this was a great time to let her breathe again. The combined force of Anton's kick to her face, and the air Sergej forced into her lungs knocked her back was a resounding thud! onto the floor._

She had been cut, stabbed, and she knew a few ribs were boroken. Her whole lower side hurt, and she felt as though she was starting to lose circulation to her feet. Her face hurt, as did her entire body. Anton had her on her back in a second, and it was Olena was defenseless against the both of them. The both of them were literally choking the life out of her.

Olena quietly put a hand to her neck, where the bruise was still visible, but slightly less so. With her accelerated healing, it should be gone in about a day if not hours.

"Wilder?" someone said. It was a Christian. He'd broken her out of her memory and was staring at her with those Ozera blues.

"I'm good," she told them. "I think... I'm just going to go and get some rest... or Study..." Olena got up and moved to throw away the food that Aleksandyr had bought her. Which she had hardly touched. She wasn't in the mood for eating; she was more in the mood for sleeping... Or figuring out why Aleksandyr had suddenly gone off...

* * *

**_So, that is the end of Chapter Four. I hope you guys enjoyed it. To be honest, I feel like the ending of the chapter is a bit wierd to me (I wasn't sure how to end it!), but other than that, I liked it. Why do you think Aleksandyr stormed off like that? To be honest, I'm not sure why either! We're 'bout to find out in Chapter Five! lol Thanks for reading, and don't be a fraid to like it, and please comment, vote or send me a pm of what you think should happen!_**

**_~Love, Nightowl_**


	6. Chapter Five

**_Chapter Five_**

Olena stepped out of the warmth of the cafeteria. She'd felt eyes on her back as she moved, which wasn't surprising. A Dhampir novice being attacked and unable to defend herself against (apparently) one opponent was something the Moroi didn't hear every day.

Her body ached, and she was sore, but she felt a hell of a lot better than she had in the past few hours. Olena had woken up in her new, soft bed, stiff as a board, and in pain. She'd been given medication from Olendzki, pain killers. Her body had been used to pain already, but her tolerance level was low compared to what she'd been feeling for the past couple of weeks.

In the infirmary, the doctor had her move around, just to get her body used to moving. After she'd woken up, and hadn't told them a damned thing, the doctor ordered her to sleep again. She hadn't been able to; she simply laid up in bed, staring at her surroundings, aching to get out. Olendzki's face was bright red when she caught her trying to leave again with a broken leg. Olena had nearly made it to the elevator down the hall, in her little robe and the hospital gown they'd put her in. She had been smart enough to take the I.V. with her, but Belikov had been waiting for her.

"You cannot get up," The doctor had been stern, like her mother when she caught Olena and Rurik wrestling when she was young. Rurik had gotten in trouble simply for hitting a girl, and fighting her. Their father hadn't been too happy about the whole thing either, but told their mother it was a simple exercise to teach Olena how to protect herself. Of course, Jasha and Firebird were cheering them on, as well as Konstantine.

The doctor kept her on bed-rest for the next couple of days after that, her leg had healed, must faster than any Dhampir had ever healed before. Olena gave thanks to the animal inside of her. Her superhuman abilities gave her and her brothers certain attributes, such as shifting in and out of their animal forms, and exceeded healing.

Olena smiled at the fond memory of her family. She hoped Jasha would be there soon. She needed to leave; now. This place was no longer safe for her, and although she hated taking the risk of leading the Varinskis to her front door, it was less people that would possibly be killed for trying to protect her.

She came to stop in the library; one of her favorite places as well as Aleksandyr's. She entered the building, nodding to Moroi at the desk. The young woman gave her a bright smile, and nodded to hr left. She and Aleksandyr would sometimes skip classes and hang out there until lunch, and the librarian wouldn't say a word.

Olena moved silently among the shelves, looking around until finally moving up the stairs, to the third floor; there was a back room that she and a few others used just to hang out. She found exactly what she was looking for, sitting at a desk. He was talking in an odd voice into his phone; he sounded irritated, but worried. Olena noticed that he was speaking in that language his grandmother had taught him; it was hard for her to pronounce the words, due to her own accent.

"Sasha?" she said softly. She knew he hated being called by his Russian nickname. He had never understood the odd names Russian had. Stark, angry blue yes met with her amber-topaz orbs.

He didn't say anything, just ended the call. His eyes looked away from hers as he shoved the phone into his pocket. She moved over and sat down with a groan at the table; she wasn't able to move her body in a variation of degrees. Sitting, walking, standing, hell _everything_ was hard for a while.

"Wow, this is the first time you haven't gone all pissy-princess over being called by a girl name," she teased. He make a half chuckle, but still didn't say anything. Olena sighed, rolling her eyes. _Guys. Showing emotion equates you to a girl._ she thought.

"Al-"

"I'm fine. The question is, are you?" he interrupted her. She furrowed a brow, and started to shake her head.

"Yeah, we're both fine," she said sarcastically. An idea suddenly popped into her head. "Tell me S-" He gave her a look. "_Aleksandyr_. What was that?" she asked him.

"What was what?" he countered.

"Don't play dumb. What were the lights? Is that what you did... before? Did you heal me before?" he still didn't answer her. He still didn't look at her. His blue eyes were clouded over as he deliberately looked down at the table between them.

"Aleksandyr, tell me. You healed me right? Look," she took off her jacket, and rolled up her sleeve. Her arm was swathed in bandages. She took one off, revealing. The scab was fast in healing, and it was going to scar, like most of the cuts on her body. She also showed him the mark on her neck.

"I know I heal quickly, but come on. Tell me that wasn't you." she said, staring at him. "Sandyr-"

"You died," he said quietly. He looked up at her, with what she thought might have been tears in his eyes. "I was too late..."

Olena furrowed her brow, shaking her head. This caused a minor headache. "Sandyr, I'm obviously not dead. I'm fine; just look at me."

"No," he insisted. "You were dead. _I saw you._ There was... blood everywhere, and you weren't moving, and-"

Olena scoffed. "Somebody's been staying up late, watching _Twilight Zone_ reruns. Dude, I'm fine. Not dead. I-"

"You weren't breathing!" Aleksandyr shouted at her. "You had _no_ _pulse_! There was to much blood in that room! You lost too much, and whomever it was that attacked you bled you out. When I got there, it smelled like _blood and death_ in that room! You. Were. _Dead_!" Aleksandyr was standing up now. He had pounded his hands on the table, shouting his words, and his eyes were wild with anger and what Olena thought might have been fear. He had knocked the chair back, nearly to the wall.

His blue eyes were fixated on Olena, his face under a sheen of cold sweat, and an expression that begged her to understand. She simply sat there, astonished, and fearful of the look in his eyes. The only one between them that should live up to her wild name sat in silence and shock, her hands shaking. A tornado of emotions swept through her: irritation and anger at Aleksandyr for his insistence on her being dead, worry for his sanity as well as hers, and fear for another one of his outbursts; she was also fearful of losing control of her inner animal, which was slipping by the second now. But most of all, Olena feared another emotion he most: knowing that he was right.

Deep down, in the endless cavern of her heat, she knew he was right. Olena knew that Aleksandyr was right. She's been blanking out, having a hard time with her memory when she had a formidable one all these years. Olena had been weary of the darkest shadows on campus, and every now and then, she would sense the feeling of being watched; of being... _wanted_. Something had happened to her after she passed out that she could not explain.

However, she could explain what she had felt. In the darkness that her mind, when she'd been fighting to keep her ever-slipping grip on he natural world, something within her broke. In the darkness, she'd seen the shadows moving; she'd seen pitch-black eyes watching her from afar. Olena had seen a smiling face before the darkness finally cleared; hundreds of them. She knew them; she was them. She had seen those that came before her, and those that would come after her, and yet she could not stay with the Konstantines of years past. She could not speak to her mother's people.

Olena had watched as someone, or something stepped out from among the masses of dark shadows and shapes.

_"Poka net, devushka. Vy budete odnim s tʹmoy dostatochno skoro. Vernutʹsya. seychas ne vremya ..." _The voice was dark, foreboding; a chill would have ran through her body if she had one. Olena knew then that she had been a spirit then. A spirit without her body.

She knew the Dark One had been prepared to send her back, but Aleksandyr...

"You... You brought me back..." she whispered. Aleksandyr ran his fingers through his hair, his chest heaving from his shouting. Olena heard the distant sound of footsteps. "He said that it was not my time. He had plans for me..." Olena looked up at Aleksandyr again. He stared in return, but then his resolve dissipated. His shoulders hunched and he sighed, picking up the chair.

"Olena..." he buried his face in his hands. It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. All those weeks, he'd held the truth from her, not knowing how she would react. How could anyone anticipate being brought back to life, not knowing about it, and having to be told that they had actually died and had been brought back in the first place? "I am so sorry, Olena..."

She was looking a the table, her face pale, like she was about to blow chunks.

"The _Dʹyavol_ did not want me yet... He said it was not my time..." She shook her head, and started looking around, wildly. "What..." Olena took a deep breath and let out a sob. Her sweet face twisted into fear and confusion. _"What does that even mean?!"_ she cried. Olena abruptly stood up, holding her head as if she were in pain.

_"Oznachayet li eto, chto ya sobirayusʹ umeretʹ snova? Chto budet s moyey semʹyey? Pochemu on Temnyy khotite, chtoby my mertvy? My zhili v mire v techeniye mnogikh let, i teperʹ on khochet, chtoby my s puti? Za chto? Mirovoye gospodstvo? Chto my budem delatʹ, chto ya skazhu moyey semʹi?!"_ Her words became jumbled Russian as she flurried about like an angry little bird. She was shaking her head wildly, and her sweet voice rose in octaves with each sentence.

Aleksandyr shook his head, and got up to calm Olena down when the young Moroi from downstairs appeared. Her eyes were wide in taking in the shouting Olena before her, but Aleksandyr didn't bother trying to stop the young woman. He was focused on the screaming girl in front of him, moving about the room like the frantic rabbit from _Alice in Wonderland_.

Olena was now sobbing, and close to screaming in fear. This was the first time Aleksandyr had ever seen her like this, and it scared the hell out of him. The only thing he could make out from the screaming mess omitting from her now seemingly healed lungs in Russian was 'Dark One'.

He had no idea what it was, but Olena was afraid of it. What he just told her and sent her over the line into insanity. Nevertheless, he tried to aid his now seemingly crazy best friend.

"Olena, calm down. You're fine! No one's going to hurt you." he told her. He was following her about the room, and had finally reached out to her when a shadow filled the doorway.

"He's coming for me!" Olena screeched. "He's here!" she was crying now, having stopped in the middle of the room, still holding her head.

"What's going on? Olena?" Aleksandyr looked. And... _Dimitri Belikov to the rescue,_ he thought. The Gaurdian was quick in moving to stand between Olena and Aleksandyr. She looked up at him, sobbing and shaking.

"I-I don't know," Aleksandyr didn't want the Gaurdian to know what he'd just told her. Aleksandyr knew he had set her off, but he had no choice. He'd rather she had known now, then later.

_"Yekaterina, vy v poryadke. Nikto ne sobirayetsya prichinyatʹ tebe bolʹ."_ Dimitri moved to sit her down on the table. He spoke softly, and calmly. Like Olena hadn't been screaming bloody murder just seconds ago.

_"Net, net, net! U nego yestʹ plany! On zhdet!"_ She shook her head in return, and groaned. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Dimitri had a confused and concerned look on his handsome face.

_"SeychasKatya? Kto vas zhdet?"_ He held Olena's face in his hands, forcing her to look at him.

_"On zhdet. Eto ne moye vremya."_

_"Rasskazhite Dimitri , kotoryy zhdet vas. Kto idet?_ Let me help." Dimitri held her hands away from her face, and looked down at her. The man was still a lot taller than she was, with his near six feet, three inches. Aleksandyr and the librarian looked on in awe and silence. Aleksandyr had seen Olena angry before, but that seemed to be nothing compared to her current emotions. Now, she was very afraid.

Olena seemed to calm down, but she was still shaking her head. She was silent and took a few deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, they were almost animal. Aleksandyr could see that Olena was definitely not herself. Not with those eyes. Not with that fearful look on her face.

"_Dʹyavol..." _she murmured. Tears welled up in her eyes again, and her bottom lip quivered. Dimitri furrowed his brow deeply, but he didn't say anything. He simply nodded as if he understood (which he did), and Olena buried her face in his shirt. He cut a look at Aleksandyr, silently asking if he knew what she was talking about.

Aleksandyr seemed to get the message, but shook his head. He had had an idea or two.

* * *

**_And thus ends Chapter Five! Hey, I'm thinking of naming the chapters. What would be some good ideas? And isn't it cute that Dimitri sort of got Olena to calm down? Tell who you're favorites character is between Aleksandyr and Dimitri. And I would like to kow why as well!_**

**_Guys, sorry for not posting for like, the past two weeks. I've been really busy and tired from school, and I've been gong on nationstates a lot. Forgive me! I'll post Chapter Six soon, I promise! Vote and comment please!_**

**_~Love, Nightowl._**

**_P.S. I'm thinking... as incentive for reading, voting and commenting, whoever can give me their favrotie character in the stroy so far, (not limiting to but including Dimitri and Aleksandyr) and gives me a really good reason, could become a character in the story! Or, you could come up with a really good poster or picture for the story!_**


	7. Chapter Six

**_Chapter Six_**

Dimitri Belikov was extremely concerned. He'd never seen anything like this, even in his line of work. Not when protecting the Moroi noble, and not when he'd been in Russia. No Dhampir had ever... _freaked out _the way Olena Wilder just had.

_What she meant by the Devil wanting her?_ His dark eyes were clouded in thought, but he cuahgt movment. He watched as Head Guardian Alberta Petrov and her second, Stan Alto, entered the campus Headquarters for the Guardian of St. Vladimir's. Dimitri had been sitting at a desk, going through Olena's file.

Her history was... odd. She lived with her family, which was odd for a Dhampiress her age. The young Moroi and Dhampir went through school together, living on campus in the dorms from kindergarten to graduation. Once those years were up, the Dhampir were contracted and the Moroi gained Guardians. But Olena Wilder... Her records were never in any system, not one here in America, or even St. Basil's. The girl was a ghost, until now.

"Belikov, what happened?" The Head Gaurdian posed a question that needed no introduction. "Ozera told us that she.. lost it?" Petrova sounded skeptical that a yng dhampir like Olena, full of potential, could have lost her mind in less tan a minute. With a Royal Moroi is close quarters, no doubt. "It doesn't add up."

"The kid didn't give us any trouble until a few weeks ago..." Guardian Alto put in. Stan was an instructor to the novices, as well as a teacher in the classroom. One could say that he knew the novices almost better than any of the others, save Petrov, for having spent so much time with them.

"Would you be completely alright if you'd been attacked in your dorm room? In the middle of the nihgt, when you were supposed to believe that you were completely safe here?" Alberta asked. Stan sighed, and rubbed his balding head.

"Fine, but that doesn't change or excuse the fact that she could have hurt Ozera."

"True," Dimitri said. "but... she was not herself."

"Meaning?" Stan gestured or Dimitri to explain himself.

"She was crying and screaming, yes. But she didn't seem to have control overself. She was... something different, like a whole nother being. There was something inher eyes: fear, and anguish." the Russian Guardian looked up from the file. "Olena was terrifed of something. She claimed that 'He wanted her,' and 'He was coming for her.'" He furrowed his brow, frowning.

"Who?" Alberta asked him. The woman stood straight, not liking he tone of Dimitri's voice. "Who's 'he'?"

"She claimed it was _Dʹyavol_, the Evil One."

Stan stod in front of the desk, his face a blanket of skeptisism. "The kid told you the Devil was after her?" he laughed, shaking his head. Alberta gave him a look. "Pardon me, but I don't believe that. Clearly, what happened to her was traumatizing enough, and yes, I do feel sorry for her. But that doesn't give her an ecuse to... act like she was possessed..."

"Perhaps she just needs rest. I'll have her monitored to make sure she doesn't have another... spell. And I want you to watch Ozera. He's a Royal,a nd I don't him to be around if she loses it again."

Dimitri and Stan nodded to their commander. they watched the woman walk away, down the hall to her own office. Stan sighed.

"This just doesn't feel right, Alto. Look at her file." Dimirtri turned over the important-looking manilla folder and pushed it across the desk.

"Record's clean. No crazy-spells in her past..." the Guardian shook his head, and sighed again. "Belikov, what am I looking for?"

"What isn't there?" Dimirtri countered. Stan gave him a look and looked at the file again. He shook his head.

"Olena Wilder was never registered before this year." Dimitri informed him. The file was indeed less full than most of the other files.

"She's good in trainging. The kid is fast, using her weight to her advantage. Belikov, I see nothing wrong this the kid expect she might be potentially dimentionary, and has a vague pst. However, I know what you're getting at. We don't know muc about her..."

"Have her parents been contatced?" It was extremely unusual for a Dhampir to be attacked on campus, and it never happened unless it was some prank. This, however, was no prank. Olena had been attacked, but by who, none of them knew. Dimitri thought they needed to up the security around here, install more cameras; this was the perfect time to do so.

"Her parents have not been notified. I thought we could handle it." Stan accepted this with a nod. "We'll be able to bring in another Guardian or two soon, one for each dorm. It would be nice to have extra stakes around here. Good night, Belikov." Dimitri nodded as Stan left.

His dark eyes searched the file again, but he shook his head. Olena had been afraid of something, and he knew checking her file wouldn't clue him in on anything. He, for one, was a superstious person, beliefs drilled into him by stories from his grandmother, and his mother. Dimitri believed that somethigng indeed wrong with Olena Wilder. He would have to ake his time to figure out what it was, but he was sure it wasn't something as bad as dimentia running through the family.

* * *

Aleksandyr sat down on his bed. He ran his fingers through hair, and sighed. He was tired of worrying for his best friend, yet he was glad he'd finally told her the truth. Aleksandyr had ben worried about for the past couple of weeks, but now... He shook his head, black hair swaying, and getting into his eyes.

Funny, Olena had told him that he needed a hair cut the other day... His thoughts turned back to her, to her completel meltdown earlier. She;d been screaming and yelling, and speaking in that crazy language he could never understand. she had never done that before- had never freaked out in front of him. He'd never heard of a Dhampir losing her cool like that... _unless they were crazy or working for Strigoi._

And Aleksandyr knew for a fact that his best friend was neither one of those things.

"The hell was she saying?" he murmured to himself. The royal shook his head, moving to the minifridge in his room. It sat on the other side of the room, right next to the flat screen t.v. he shared with his roommate, another royal that carried the Zeklos name. He grabbed a Corona from the fridge, and found the television remote.

Aleksandyr started flipping through the channels, not really seeing anything that caught his attention. He was a bit too preoccupied. Nothing had seemed of interest to him; it was all reruns that he'd seen numerous times. Aleksandyr simply shook his dark head and cut off the television, moving to his desk on the other side of his bed. He had homework to do, and while he was under survaillence, he might as well do something productive that didn't involve screaming girls or sneaking out in the middle of the night to check on his best friend.

He pulled out his Specialization book, but his mind drifted off to when he'd first met Olena. It hadn't really been that long ago, only a year or so, now that he'd thought about it. And yet, he'd known about her for a long time...

* * *

_It was at the end of summer, close to the end of August. It was simply warm outside as Aleksandyr moved about the campus. His parents can brought him back early, just to get him established into the Academy ahead of the other students. Apparently, other Moroi had had the same ideas. The campus was near to buzzing with old friends and acquaintences after havig not seeing each others for just over two months._

_The other royals simply looked at him or his cousin Christian and went about their business. The Ozera name seemed blacklisted simply due to Christian's parents voluntarily turning Strigoi, then going after their son when he was young. Christian's aunt had protected him, getting her face nearly bitten off in the process of protecting her young nephew, and Lucas and Moira Ozera were no more._

_Aleksandyr quickly foudn his dorm room, and was moving toward the dorms when he spotted movement across the quad. It was a girl that he hadn't seen before, but then again, he only talked to about a fourth of the studnet body here, along with the occassional girlfriend or two. His icy eyes stayed on her as she moved; she was about his height, slightly tall with dark, curling hair that reached the middle of her back. The girl's legs were long, and he could only imagine what might have been udnerneath those tight blue shorts, and her white camisole. Her curls showed the signs of her being either sweet, sensual or a mix of both, and the way she moved..._

_With such grace and lethal tension coiled up in that tight little body of hers..._

_Aleksandyr smiled and moved toward her, determined to put onn the moves that could get him a girl just before school started to annoy his ex, when she turned around. Her skin was near russett, and slightly tanned, a sign that she loved the sun. Her dark hauir gleamed in the sunlight of the late afternoon, and Aleksandyr Ozera stopped in his tracks._

_This girl... was a Dhampir. _

_Her eyes found his immediately, pools of near golden amber-topaz light staring at his icy blues from across the quad. Aleksandyr was unsure of whether or not he was breathing. Her nose was like a cute button, and her lips... They were in a full cupid's bow, plump like pink fruit waiting to be picked._

_How the hell could something so supple and sweet-looking be so off-limits. The affaris of a Moroi and a Dhampir were taboo among his people; a Moroi royal and dhampir girl dating was completely out of line. His own mother had told him to 'stay away from those girls who would ruin his name'. He could only assume his mother knew nothing about the temptations this girl was putting off; how hard it was resist a thing such as her._

_She smiled at him brightly, and he felt his own face heat up. He needed to know her; he wanted to hear her voice, how sweet it might be..._

_Aleksaydr hadn't had the chance to talk to her: Alberta Petrov appeared with Stan Alto at her side. The two were talking to the girl, and it seemd as if they were showing her around the place. A breeze blew, and the girl looked over at him from across the way. Her curls were swept aroundher face, but she still nodded to him and moved with Petrov and Alto towards Guardian Headquarters on campus..._

* * *

**_So, here's Chapter Six you guys! I figured that a_****_t some point I would have to explain how Olena and Aleksandyr met, thinking some of you may want to know. It's only winter now, so they've known each other for quite some time. Sooner or later, I'll put in Rose, and Lissa and the rest of the gang._**

**_What do you think of Aleksandyr now, compared to how he seemed back then? Vote and Comment!_**

**_~Love, Nightowl._**


	8. Chapter Seven

**_Chapter Seven_**

It was sort of hard for him to comprehend what had happened later on that day, nearly a year and a half ago. How he'd gone from potential pre-school fling to the best friend of perhaps one of the cutest girls he'd ever seen. Putting in the earbuds that were connected to his iPhone 7, Aleksandyr smiled as Breaking Benjamin's _Diary of Jane_ began to play...

* * *

_He had been getting his room situated once he got to the dorms when he ran into his roommate, Sergej. The guy was the standard Zeklos material: an obnoxious, narcasisstic jerk who had a daddy complex, but was good at buying friends and girls._

_The guy already had a girl on each arm._

_"Hey," he nodded to Aleksandyr. "Ozera, right?" Zeklos smiled. Aleksandyr smiled silently, and smiled welcomingly. His mother had also told him that one could never be too open to forging a friendship of sorts with other royals his age._

_"Zeklos. Sergej."_

_"So I see," Aleksandyr nodded. "What's up?"_

_"Just chillin' man. Just chillin'. Isn't that right, girls?" The two laughed like schoolgirls and nodded. Aleksandyr chuckled, shaking his head. He decied to unpack later, and would look around for a while._

_He left Sergej with the two giggling girls, being courteous and closing the door behind him. He put in the headphones from his iPhone 5, scrolling through his music. He had some pretty good artists: Breaking Benjamin, Paramore, Coldplay, Eminem, and the occasional Linkin Park songs. Aleksandyr chose one of his favorite songs: _Diary of Jane_ by Breaking Benjamin._

_The song lyrics swam through his mind, and he nodded to the tempo of the song._

"If I had to, I would put myself right beside you  
So let me ask, would you like that? Would you that?  
And I don't mind  
If you say this love is the last time  
So now I'll ask, do you like that? Do you like that?  
NO!"

_"Something's getting in the way/ Something's just about to break/ I will try to find my place/ In the diary of Jane/ So tell me how it should be!" Aleksandyr sang the words to the song, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He hadn't seen the person that just walked past him, nor did he hear them._

_He caught the scent on the breeze; the scent of something wild in the air, and he stopped. Aleksandyr only tuned and saw long legs and flowing dark hair. Looking around, there was no one around but the two of them, him and her. Aleksandyr paused the music and turned around to follow her._

_He smiled. "Hey!" the girl turned around, but it wasn't the one from earlier. This girl was someone else, although her hair was close to the darkness of the other girl._

_"Oh, sorry..." Aleksandyr said sheepishly before turning away. The girl looked confused, but kept moving..._

* * *

Aleksandyr heard a noise, and paused his music. He took out his headphones and looked around. His roommate was sprawled on his bed, flipping through channels as he had done before. Aleksandyr shook his head, not saying anything. He simply turned back to his music, and tried to focus on his homework.

He liked history, and he hated math. English was a moot point for him, but he figured it hadn't hurt to try. As it turned out, he was very good with words. Aleksandyr finished up his English homework, then dug around in his backpack, looking for more busy work. Anything to keep him occupied at this point, besides how he'd acquired information about Olena, and how he came by her in the first place.

Aleksandyr shook his head; the truth was bound to coe out at some point, but that point did not need to be right now. He remembered the way she looked that day, her figure drove him crazy...

* * *

_Later on..._

_She had an hour-glass figure, her curves being acentuated by her v-neck and dark skinnies. To his detriment, she wore a camisole under the v-neck, not giving him a peek at those sweet little curves she had hidden under her clothes._

_Having seen her with the Guardians, he'd decided to catch her somewhere she might be... Of which he had no idea._

_Aleksandyr had stayed in the dorms for a couple of hours until forcing himself to go to the library and simply rummage around the place. No one was really doing anything, not until the rest of the students arrives in the next week or so. He was simply looking through a few Shakespearean plays when he heard movement to his right. _

_The girl moved past him, not even looking at him. She seemed completely oblivious to his presence. _

_Aleksandyr moved to the end of the isle of shelves, and looked around. He saw her all the way across the room, and made a face. _The girl moved fast,_ he thought. Aleksandyr watched as she moved through a door leading to the second floor of the library and quietly followed her. He felt like a stalker, but he couldn't help himself. He seriously wanted to get to know the girl he'd seen before._

_Following in her footsteps, he went upstairs, looking around. She was nowhere to be seen._

_"The hell?" he said to himself. Aleksandyr slowly moved about this section of the second floor, seeing what he wasn't looking for. His blue eyes searched, then he decided to go into stealhty spy mode, and blend in with the few that were present in the section._

_Aleksandyr picked up a book from the shelf, not knowing what it was he'd plucked off the shelf, simply opening the book a random page. He looked around, making sure no one was watching him, and caught movement out the corner of his eye._

_A full head of black hair bobbed across the room, and around another corner. Aleksandyr, still holding the book, moved quickly across the room, his icy eyes beginning to brighten with anticipation. He followed the trail of the light scent the girl left behind, and found himself at the bottom of another set of stairs. Aleksandyr moved up to the third floor, the place hardly occupied. _

_"It couldn't be that hard to spot her up here," he said to himself, looking around._

_Wait a minute, what was he doing here? He needed to be going to get his things together, purchasing textbooks, and finidng out what classes he had, not obsessing about a Dhampir girl he literally saw once just that morning. What the hell was he doing?_

_Aleksandyr shook his head, turning to move back to the steps. He stopped, seeing something move toward him. He ended up on his stomach, with a knee in the middle of his back._

* * *

**_Sorry it took so long to get this one up, you guys. Trust me when I say, I've been working on this since last week. To be honest, I knew how I wanted them to meet, but then the idea just coompletely slipped my mind. Anyways, read the next chapter to find out what happens! And please, don't be afraid to vote, add, and comment! Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments!_**

**_~Love, Nightcowl._**


	9. Chapter Eight

**_Chapter Eight_**

_"Ah!" he cried out belatedly, trying to look up._

_"Why are you following me? Who do you think you are?" the voice he heard in a threatenting tone was sweet, yet menacing. Like it was ready to tear somethig apart._

_"Wha-"_

_"You're following me? Who are you? And what do you want?" She twisted his arm up, making like she was going to break it._

The hell!?_ he thought. What Dhampir attacked a Moroi, and a _royal_ at that?_

_"What are you doing?" Aleksandyr was able to see her out of the corner of his eye. "Honest, I'm not trying to hurt you..." he struggled to get free of her strong grip, which completely contrasted with her body. He paused when he felt her breath on his neck. He heard an intake of breath..._

_She was smelling him! This chick was sniffing his neck like he was some odd animal that she had never seen before! Aleksandyr could feel her body pressing against his; he couldn't deny the fact that she felt warm beneath the clothes, and her scent covered him. The girl smelled just like she looked: like sunlight and honey in the most primitive way possible. Now having her under him instead of on top of him... he had a feeling neither one of them would complain about that._

_"Um... I'm Aleksandyr..."_

_The grip on his hands loosened, and he heard her sigh. He was able to move his arms, and put his hands under his chin. "Would you mind getting off?" he asked her. Not that he didn't like the weight of her on him; she was light for a girl like her, which probably contributed to her agility and swiftness._

_"Mind telling me why you're following me? You can't be one of them. I'd have smelled you a mile off." She leaned in close, and he felt her breath on his neck again. "And you smell... like something clean... not dirty or grimy at all."_

Who the hell has she been hanging around with?!_ his mind screeched. He felt the pressure of her body lighten. "I am Olena." Aleksandyr held out his hand, and she shook it warily._

_"No need to be afraid; I don't bite... Unless you want me to..." his voice had gone deep, like it always did when putting the moves on a girl. Olena wasn't impressed. she let go of his hand and stood up. Aleksandyr scrambled to his feet. "Look, I'm sorry for foolowing you. I just... I've never seen anyone like you before..." Or smelled anyone like you before, his mind spoke up, and his heart skipped a beat as she furrowed her brow. _

_He had to say, this Olena girl looked adorable when she was confused. "So, you followed me because you've never seen anyone like me before?" Her voice... _

_"Are you Eastern European?" he asked on a whim._

_"My family, _da_." This girl was Russian. No wonder she looked so... exotic compared to the other girls around here. She had a full figure, and he couldn't blame any guy who wanted to-_

_"You did not answer my question, Aleksandyr."_

_"I just... you're really pretty, and the way you look at me this morning, from across the quad when Petrov and Alto were talking to you..." He pictured her then, lightly tanned skin, like the sun had simply kissed her, and the glow lingered beneath her skin as the scent radiated like rays of light. Her dark hair was lited in the breeze, and Aleksandyr coldn't help but love her dark tresses._

_"Oh, that was you. Well, you should know something, Aleksandyr. I am not here for a relationship..." Most Dhampir would have the common sense to say that, but still._

_"Ouch," hje chuckled, and he blushed. His smile broadened._

_"Izvinite," she said. " She grabbed her books from the table, and her bag was sitting in a chair. Those hadn't been there a minute ago, Aleksandyr thought._

_"But come on. Face it," she said, smiling. "You wouldn't be able to handle this." Olena gave him a pretty smile, and Aleksandyr felt his face heat up as she moved past him, her scent drifting past him._

_Aleksandyr turned and followed her down the steps, too appalled to say anything. The girl moved with a sensuality that she didn't seem to know was there. Which meant she was playing off the fact that every pair of eyes that turned her way seemed to portray lust, interest, and the extremely obvious leers. That or she really was oblivious, and from the look on her face, she knew exactly what those guys were thinking. Not to say that he wasn't it as well, it simply wasn't as obvious._

_So he hoped._

* * *

Aleksandyr out away his books, smiling to himself. He always did when remembering how he'd met Olena last year, and look at how close they'd gotten. And now, they might be even closer than they were before...

* * *

_One month later..._

The sun had nearly finished its decent below the horizon. The sky was getting dark from the sun's going down, and soon enough, school would commence. Meredith was still asleep in her nice, new bed, just as Olena was... _Or had been._

The girl in question was now standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom. The door was closed so the florescent lighting wouldn't wake up her roommate. She was confused, but still trying to catch her breath. The expression on her face was haggard and disorientied.

Olena had woken up in the early evening, feeling nauseus. Olena found herself dry-heaving as she rushed into the bathroom, and she flushed the toilet when she was done usign it. Sitting in front of it, took a deep breath, that got up to get some mouthwash. Olena used cold water to wipe off her face, and move her hair out of her eyes. Her skin was a little pale and slightly clammy; her eyes were moving over herself, and her fingers traced along the scars she received over a month or two ago.

Olena turned away from the mirror, not liking the look of the girl that happen to be staring right back at her. She sighed, turnign to take another swig of mouthwash before leaving the bathroom. She decided to take a nice long shower, perhaps run up the hot water, and feeling extremely vigorated afterwards. Once she gathered the clothes she would wear that day, she moved back into the bathroom. Olena took her time taking off her clothes, and assessing herself in the mirror, making sure her current thought pattern was off. She saw no evidence of her self-pitying, and fearful thoughts were indeed true, and stepped into the shower. Using one of her favorite scented oils- Pure White Linen from Estee Lauter.

She smiled and sighed with content at the scent. Olena loved the smell of clean sheets; she always managed to know when it when her mother was doing laundery, and the scent of clean sheets always calmedher down. She also loved the scent of Christian Dior's orchid infused J'adore. The scent reminded her of the apple orchid and the trees on father's land in the valley near Blythe.

Olena ran her fingers through her hair, inhaling the scent of clean sheets. Tomrrow, she'd use J'adore, or something else, like mint. Olena chuckled, knowing Firebird would go crazy for the scent of mints. Olena smiled fondly as she reminisced about the days where she was able to move freely about the valley; she knew it was safe in her beautiful little corner of the world. Then everything changed.

She was present at the bonfire where Mama had her vision, and the devil charged Konstantine and his sons with another curse: to find the four Varinski icons, and break the pact the first Konstantine had made. The icon had been stolen by Konstantine after he killed his mother. The _babushka_ had tried to protect the icon, and paid for it with her life- such was the requirement for the first Konstantine Varinski to seal the pact that cursed his sons.

And daughter.

Olena paused in the shower. She was the second daught of the Varinskis, and yet the only one to inherit the trait passed through the sons: the one changed her into a predator of some sort, one that hunted its prey without remorse. The thougt made her queasy. _Why was she the only one to change when Firebird was her older sister?_

Leaning against the shower wall, she tried to think of something else. She didn't want to get sick again, and yet she still felt nauseus... Olena closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. The feeling seemed to go away, and yet, when she got out of the shower, feeling more refreshed than she had in weeks, the scent in the bathroom along made bile rise in her throat.

Olena groaned, but made it to the toilet in time. After a repeat of earlier, Olena decided that it was probably best she skipped breakfast.

* * *

_**Here's Chapter Eight, you guys. I'm glad I finally came up with a way to tie their meeting into the story. It took me a bit to come with it. I had the idea, but I wasn't sure how to word it right. Well, I figured it out! I hope you guys like Chapter Eight! So, what do you think is up with Olena? Or is it a bit obvious? Is so, then i should probably be more cryptic. If not, then good. You shall find out soon enough!**_

_**~Love, Nightowl01**_


	10. Chapter Nine

**_Chapter Nine_**

Meredith shut off the alarm on the nightstand, which stood between the new beds she and her roommate had been given. She sighed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and moved to get a view of the window. The curtains were open, showing the meager light of day disappearing quickly. It was about time for everyone to be up and about in the co-ed dorm the Dhampir of St. Vlad's had established as their own. Of course, it wasn't as lavishly furnished and gilted as the Moroi dorm about a mile or two way, well within a two minute run for the Dhampir.

She sat up in bed, taking a second to reorient herself before moving anything closer to the edge of the bed. Swingng her legs over, she got up and moved toward the bathroom. She cut the light on it the room, and noticed Olena's bed was empty. Usually, her roomate would still be asleep, vying for a few more minutes of sleep while Meredith took her morning shower. lookign around, she noticed the bathroom door was closed, and she heard the shower running.

"Huh. There's a first time for everything, I suppose," she thought out loud. "Hopefully, she doesn't use up all the hot water." Meredith yawned and streched, getting out the clothes she planned on wearing that day. Light gray jeans, her black sweater, and a dark blue turtle neck. Once she got her clothes out, and Olena still wasn' out of the bathrrom, she knocked on the door. The shower had stopped, and yet Olena was still in the bathroom. What was taking her so long? It was usually an in-and-out job when it came to the bathroom. The two of them had that routine down-packed.

"Olena?" she called. "Hey, do you mind-" Meredith paused hearing odd sound. Before she could comprehend what the noise was, which she thought might have been gagging or dry-heaving, the toilet flushed and the door swung open.

Olena was wrapped in a towel, her hair damp. Water droplets clung to her smooth-looking skin (aside from the scars), and ran paths down her legs and arms as she rushed out of the bathroom. Meredith almost didn't have the time to step out of the girl's way. Her face was pale, almost sickly.

"Hey," she said to her. "Um, are you okay?" her brow was furrowed, seeing the new additions to her roommate's skin- the pink scars that were perhaps the only reminders of the attack almost a month and a half ago. Olena did answer her, or look at her; she simply moved quietly about the room. Olena had put her clothes on her bed, deciding to put them on while Meredith took her shower.

Meredith stared at her for a moment longer before nodding, and telling herself to simply let her friend be.

"When you're ready to talk, I'm here, okay?" Olena nodded, taking off the towel. Merdith winced at the marks on the Wilder's back. They made slightly raised, puckered marks up and down her back. It was as if someone had simply taken a rusted butter knife and carved Olena's back like it was a wood-carving. Who ever mutilated her had a serious grievance with her. Meredith sighed, trying not to think of the way she'd found her: the scent of blood overwhelming, curled into the corner of the room, close to death, and with her clothes tattered and torn.

She shook her head, not getting a reply, and gathered her things before moving into the bathroom, leaving Olena to stand in the middle of the room.

* * *

Olena quickly moved down the steps after getting her clothes and gathering her books. And this was only after nearly ten minute of assessing herself in front of the mirror than hung on the door in her and Meredith's room. Tears had burned her eyes as she ran her fingers over the pink, slightly raised scars all over her body. She'd even had one just underher chin, albiet small.

Olena had looked at the closed bathroom door, then to the mirror again, and let out a shaky sigh. She forced herself not to look into the mirror for fear of beaking into a million pieces and crying until her eyes ran dry. She pulled on her jeans, but decided to change her shirt. Olena thought that she probably shouldn't wearing anything like a v-neck. If she nearly cried at the sight of the hideous marking on her body, which were _all over_ her arms, torso, and chest, then who else would want to see them?

Self-pity consumed her as she rummaged through the drawers on her bed. She was angry with herself for putting her weapons in a now seemingly obvious place. Smart move, Olena. Her mind scolded. _Yeah, under the bed was probably not the best place in the room to hide a few throwing knives and a hand gun. You got them past security some how, yet a smiple Varinski can walk right in, beat the living shit out of you and do who knows what else, and just take your stuff. Way to go, girl_.

Olena tried to shake away the self-depriving thought, but she knew it was no use: she was weak, and she couldn't even fight off a Varinski and an air-magic user. A young Varinski, yes, and a weak Moroi royal with the power to wield air like a dragon wielded fire, but still. She'd been no match for them; her brothers and father were right. Olena simply needed to go home, tell them what happened, and lock herself in the solitary confinment that was the room she shared with Firebird.

Pulling on a white turtle-neck sweater dress that ended just at her thighs, she pulled her hair up into a long pony before grabbing her jacket and heading downstairs. She'd put on black, knee-high leather boots lined with fur to insulate herself against the cold air outside.

"Hey, Lena!" she heard someone say. It was Mason and all his adorable ginger-haired glory. His blue eyes lit up in greeting. He smiled, and Eddie wasn't too far behind him.

"Hi," she said, turning towards the sound of his voice. Mason stood before her with a pack of twizzlers in his hand. How he'd gotten his hands on them, Olena didn't know. She took one from the pack. "Good morning, boys."

"Yo," said Eddie, his hand raised in greeting as he nodded. "It looks like you're prepared to fight the necessary evil of the cold wind blowing about outside." he noted. Olena smiled and laughed.

"Yes, it is very cold outside," Rose said, coming down the steps, and moving into the living room, one of which the dorm housed. Olena and Eddie nodded, munching on twizzlers. Rose was unfortunately in the fact that Mason was now guarding the few red rope-like candies left in the pack.

Olena pulled on her coat, her scarf, and her gloves. Although he really didn't want a draft going down her back from the cold, she was able to tolerate the chilly weather changes that occured in the state of Montana. They seemed almost identical to those in Washington.

Novices milled about, preparing for the school day, as usual. Students passed them by on their way towards the outer area of the dorm that served as a sort of reception area to the dorm. Most of them, which happened to consist mainly of the male gender, had ruffled hair and tired-looking eyes as they wandered by on their way out the door. Olena, Meredith, and Rose were three of a handful of female novices (perhaps 25-50 or so) that attended St. Vladimir's Academy. It was awell-known fact that there were few female Guardians in any one given place, which was why those like Rose's mother were particularly famous in their world.

Olena pulled her backpack over her shoulder.

"You all should be getting to breakfast. It'll be over in an hour or so." Olena started involuntarily as a deep voice came from her left. Even though she'd seen him across the room, Dimitri Belikov still managed to sneak up on her. The others glanced at her, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I did not mean to scare you, Wilder." Olena nodded, her heart palpitating, the ounding blood in her ears muffled sound. She sighed, and quickly moved for the door.

"I'm just gonna go to class," she turned and waved to her small group of friends, and the Guardian that calmed her down the other day as she headed towards the door.

She couldn't help feeling those dark eyes on her as she stepped out of the door and into the cool air of the evening. Thinking of them kept her warm as she moved across campus to the main school building.

* * *

Her classes were long, and it was a tedious task to remain awake. Even though she'd gotten a well-deserved full-night's rest, Olena still felt tired. She struggled to keep awake during history, and ended up falling alseep. It was one of the few classes she had Aleksandyr.

When she'd walked into the room, the two exchanged looks, and each gave the other a warm smile. Olena was able to sit near him, but without him being near her, and thus being the noise that kept her awake in the class, she fell alseep.

"Miss Wilder," the instructor called on her. She lazily opened her eyes, and sighed.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Honestly, could you a least give me the courtesy of not falling alseep in my class, please? And if you do, don't make it obvious that you're asleep and snore." She nodded in response, feeling her face heat up.

"Sorry," she smiled sheepishly, and heard a chuckle to her left. Looking over, she threw her eraser at Aleksandyr. "I don't snore," she mumbled.

Olena was smiling as she walked out of class. Aleksandyr caught up with her in the hallway.

"Hey," he said to her as they moved about. "Are you okay?" His thoughts strayed to the other day when she'd completely lost it in front of him when they were at the library.

"Aleksandyr, you did nothing wrong," she said, sensing his worry through the bond the two of them now shared. It was as if she were attached to him, not on a physical level of course, but a mental, spiritual level. Whenever she was close to him, she had a sense of well-being, life everything bad in the world didn't exist. Or maybe it was simply because of the way he was looking at her now.

With stark, ice blue eyes filled with worry, and guilt. She smiled, trying to keep his mind from being his worst attribute. "I'm fine, _Sasha_." he groaned and rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I feel better, besides being tired. I got the bandages taken off, since I'm pretty much healed, and I've been able to join in on practice for about a week or so.

Her weeks recuperating in the hospital from the attack had set her off her schedule, and with the brief disruptions and extremely futile escape attempts, Olena had to stay longer than it might have been usual. She felt eyes on her again, and looked up at Aleksandyr. He was staring at her, but the odd feeling wasn't coming from him.

_Then where?_ she thought. _Who is it?_ The itiching on the back of her head had her turning around, to find a pair of dark eyes watching her. Dimitri Belikov stared at her overlong, while Stan was speaking to him. She furrowed her brow, but turned again, and shook off the feeling.

"...Not to call me that." she caught the end of Aleksandyr's statement as she centered herself again. Olena nodded.

"Well, still. You didn't do anything wrong, like I said." Aleksandyr sighed, and looked as if this was something he didn't want to talk about. "Look, maybe we can talk later... How about a movie, afterschool?"

"Your place or mine?" Mason was a step behind them. Olena began to tense up, but a sudden calm washed over her. She furrowed her brow and let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

"Anything you want. But seriously, aren't we going a little too fast? I mean, not to say that you can handle this, but honey, I don't come cheap." Mason smiled.

"Whoa, slow down," Aleksandyr moved his neck like he had an attitude. "Not so fast, buddy. Before you assess the goods, make sure you figure out what you want first." Olena put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing outright.

"Well, the good don't come cheap, like I said. You gotta take me to dinner first. No skipping to dessert, you naughty boy." Mason scrunched up his face, and waved a finger in the air, and sounded like a scolding mother. By this point, Stan had caught up to them in the crowd moving to their next class, the Guardian gave Mason a queer look. Olena shook her head, and laughed in surprise, pointing at Mason.

"What?" he asked. He exaggerated his surprise at seeing Stan. Aleksandyr shook his head, and rolled his eyes, but his shoulder shook.

"Ashford, no one wants to have a guy that can't pay for his date," the Guardian said. "Plus, I like my dessertss before dinner. I skip the juicy parts, and go right to the steamy bits. Sweetness is my thing."

_Not in training, no._ she thought,

Olena nearly fell on her face from laughing and crying at the two of them. Mason and Aleksandyr looked ashamed with their red faces. They both looked embarassed and confused. "What just happened?" Mason asked.

"We just got duped. By the Warden..." Mason used a favored nickname among the novices for Guardian Alto. Realization dawned on their faces. Olena shook her head, and went on to her next class, unable to breathe from laughing too much.

* * *

_**Yeah, here's Chapter Nine! So, what do you think? I think Stan was wrong for that, honestly. Poor Mason and Aleksandyr, they might be scarred for life, or at least the rest of the year. Poor things. Well, Stan! Well! XD So, what do you guys think is up with Dimitri? And, have any of you read the **_**Darkness Chosen**_** series by Christina Dodd or the **_**Vampire Academy**_** series by Richelle Meade? If not, you need to. Seriously. Go tot he library, local, or school, and check out the books. Now. Do it now. :D They're really good books! Get ready for the next chapter, and please, don't be afraid to vote, add this story to your library, and comment on your thoughts! I really do want to hear them.**_

_** ~Love, Nightowl01**_


	11. Chapter Ten

**_Chapter Ten_**

She shifted to her left, and sent him to the floor with a kick. She stood only a few steps away as she watched him jump back up to his feet. Eddie smiled, and nodded. The Guardians watched off to the side as their students moved about, sparring in their own coordinated spaces and areas.

Olena and Eddie had been partnered since they hadn't spared in a while, and Stan wished to see who could best the other. The two of them hadn't sparred together in a long time, but Olena could easily adjust her fighting style. Her father and her brothers had taught her expect the unexpected, which meant to be able to adjust to the situation. And she couldn't remember the last time she'd sparred with Eddie Castile.

"Gotta be quicker than that, Castile," Stan said. "A Strigoi won't wait for you to get up. They'll fight dirty: strike you when you're down. They don't show mercy, and niether should you, Wilder." Olena nodded. She went at him again, and to be honest, she enjoyed it. She'd loved wrestling and play fighting with her brothers when she was a kid. It was a way for her to get her anger out, like right now. Her fist connected with his jaw, but it didn't faze him. The two of them went at it, fists and feet hitting their marks or being blocked at the last second and countered. Eddie was bigger than she was, but she was faster, able to move in a smaller space. She used her size to an advantage, but it didn't always work out that way.

Eddie had gotten in a few hits to the face, one to the leg, and a kick to the back. Olena took a fist to the face, but Eddie mainly went for her legs. He'd found that she was light on her feet, but he hesitated a few times before hitting her.

It wasn't like the marks on her body weren't visible. They were the only signs remaining that she'd been attacked inher dorm room, that and the look in her bright eyes. Like she was being haunted... Or hunted. At times, during the seemingly-forever round that probably only lasted ten minutes, Eddie could still see the faces on the Guardians and the students just a few weeks ago. Her clothes were in shreds, barely covering her body, but there were no jokes to be made. There was too much blood, and she was too pale... too dead-looking.

And the way she looked around sometimes when she didn't notice him looking? Like she was afraid that something or someone was going to come after her again.

But he had to shake the thoughts away. As much as he hated to, this was a training sessions, and the Guardians needed to know that Olena was still able to hold her ground, which she had been doing pretty well so far.

"Come on, Lena!" Rose called out from the sidelines. "Take him down!" Neither of them had noticed the others standing aside to watch the two of them. It was just him and Olena, fighting, or sparring, whichever one you wanted to call it. The look onher face was determined, but the haunting look was still there.

He really didn't want to hit her harder than he had to. _What if she wasn't ready to fight again? What if she was still a little broken from those few weeks ago? What then?_ The questions ran through Eddie's mind, but he couldn't help but think them. He knew he shouldn't though...

Her foot missed his nose, but just barely. Maybe by a few centimeters. Or milimeters, depending on where you were looking at the moment. His hand flew out, catching her foot. She looked surprised and paused for a second._ I guess I wasn't supposed to do that,_ he thought, smiling. She used the momentum and gravity of his hand to launch herself off the floor, and her other foot caught him in the chest. It sent him back a few inches, nearly out of the small box of red tape one of the Guardians had set down on the mat.

This was to simulate the close-quarters fighting they might have to endure in the real world, when fighting Strigoi.

"Good, Castile!" Alto was pacing slowly back and forth, monitoring them. "That was good Wilder, using your other foot. Nice." The guy hardly gave compliments, and even when he did, they were subtle. So as not to go to anyone's head, Eddie supoosed.

* * *

Olena looked at Eddie, and he was smiling. He gave her a slight nod before moving toward her again. She couldn't help but smile back at him. It had been a while since she used that move, but she was glad to know that kicking him in the face wasn't the only way to get him to ket go of her. She'd had to kick Jasha when he hadn't let go.

She'd gotten angry at him for telling Papa she'd snuck out to go with some friends to a nightclub, and Jasha was a total jerk, having told their father while she was out. Konstantine had already known of course. And when she'd gotten home, she was grounded, given another lecture on safety from the Varinskis, and all the hoopla that came with that talk. And then Jasha had to rub it in her face about her not being able to go to the party the Saturday after that.

He'd gotten on her nerves so much, her foot nearly got him in the jaw, but to both their surprises, he'd caught it. And they'd been arguing in front of Rurik and Firebird. The four of them were silent, but Olena had been too angry to pass up the oppurtunity: she used his momentum the way she'd used Eddie, and her little foot broke his nose.

Olena smiled at the memory, and her heart ached for home. She would be leaving soon anyways, so it didn't matter. She shook her head to see Eddie's fists, and she smacked his hand away. He turned, his elbow hitting her shoulder when he came out of the spin, and she hooked her foot on his calf.

Her hand caught his throat, and she had him on his back in a flat second.

She heard someone whoop beyond the blood pounding in her ears. What happened next was too unexpected. Somehow, she'd left herself open, vulnerabe. As soon as Eddie hit the mat, hit knee jabbed her side. She so off-kilter for that split second that he was able to get in another hit and kneed her side again. She lost her hold on his neck.

Olena felt a wave of bile come up, but she pushed it back down again. Her brow furrowed as her vision began to blur around the edges. She rolled away from Eddie, but not before sending a hard kick into his gut. He grunted, but she had quickly moved out of his reach, and tried to stand.

The bile rose and she forced it back down again. She covered her mouth, as if she could stop in and dry-heaved. Even though her bones had healed, she kknew something was half-way to being broken, like a rib or something.

"Hey, Lena...?" she heard Eddie say. "Are you okay?" he sounded apprehensive, and he looked at her warily.

"What is it, Wilder?" Stan stood before her, blue eyes searching. He blanched. "Please. Don't throw up in here."

"Great advice," she told him, holding her stomach. Hey, if that's what she was going to do, might as well milk it for what it was worth. She nearly let it out, staring straight at Stan. He went pale and wide eyed, and backed up at least two feet. She suddenly had a bucket in her hand, and when she bile rose, she didn't swallow it back down.

"Whoa, you don't look so good..." Mason put in. Eddie gave him a look. Guardian Belikov furrowed his brow.

"Maybe we shouldn't have let you practice at all for another day or two." His voice was deep, and stern. If she thought about it long enough, he might have sounded concerned...

"Hey, I'm really s-" Olena groaned and blew more chunks into the bucket. She clutched her stomach and was on her knees. Someone made another disgusted sound, and Meredith handed her a towel.

"I guess I ruined the party..." She tried to joke as best she could. It obviously hadn't worked.

"Nah, you didn't ruin it. You killed it. I bet good money on you, Wilder."

"Two dollars, Mason?" Rose looked at him like he couldn't have possibly gotten anything out of it. Ashford simply shook his red hair, and smiled apologetically. Eddie looked sheepish.

"I'm really sorry..."

"I figured you were holding back, but..." Olena shook her head and sighed, happy to have finally gotten the vomit out of her system. Alberta, still standing- and not looking slighty digusted by the smell, sound, and visiual aids of Olena puking ina bucket- handed her a water bottle.

"Just go change. You're done for the day." Guardians Alto and Beliov nodded their agreement. Meredith helped her up, and held her steady when she swayed. Olena didn't prepare for being dizzy when she stood, but Meredith, possibly the best roomate in the whole world- even if she was a quiet and slightly condescending person when you talked to her- led her to the bathroom.

Olena sighed as she opened her locker, and grabbed her clothes. Before getting dressed, she leaned against the cold metal, and sighing in relief. It felt nice against her forehead and skin.

"So," Meredith leaned on the lockers across from hers, and slightly to the left. "Dizzy spells, mood swings, mega-long showers that shouldn't be mega-long and take up the hot water but they are..." Olena looked at her, then put her back to her as she got undressed and put on her pants. "And morning sickness, with the name that apparently has no concept of time," she listened as Meredith shifted.

Olena's heart pounded, hoping what Meredith was about to say wasn't in tune with the thoughts and worries she was thinking.

"Olena, you're pregnant, aren't you?"

* * *

_***The foreboding music comences* Da, Da Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! So, meredith knows she's pregnant. I have ot say, I just went as I typed... Or typed as I went. Whichever way, this came out of the blue for me. I hadn't really anticipated Meredith knowing, but then I figured... She would catch on sooner or later, wouldn't she? What do you think? And, I sort of feel bad for making Eddie feel bad. He went through a lot in the books... He shouldn't have to feel bad for making a girl throw up during training when she'd been beaten close to death (according to everyone but Olena and Aleksandyr) over a month and a half ago. And honestly, I wasn't sure how long it would be until she got morning sickness.**_

_**Hey, I want your opinion. What do you think would happen if Dimitri and practically the entire student body of St. Vladimir's found ot that Olena was pregnant? Please, read the next chapter! And please vote and comment! I want your opinions!**_

_** ~Love, Nightowl01.**_


	12. Chapter Eleven

**_Chapter Eleven_**

She stilled, and went silent. _Nyet, nyet, nyet!_ Her subconscience screamed in despair. _How could she know?! How did she find out!?_

"Olena, I've heard you, in he bathroom. Lately, you've been getting out of bed before me, just to get a head start, and you've been staying in the shower... I'm sorry, but how could I have not found out that you were pregnant, when I've been waking up to the sound of the shower running or the fan being on to the sound of you throwing up?" Meredith stared at her from across the aisle; Olena could feel her eyes on her back. She simply shook her head, and finished putting on her pants.

Well, there it was. Meredith was probably more informed in the situation as to her current condition. If Meredith knew, how long Olena be able to keep this confined to the two of them? _What if she told the Guardians?_

Olena took a deep breath, and pulled on her shirt, still not looking at her roomate. Her ceel phone beaped in her bag, and she pulled it out. It was a text-message from Aleksandyr.

**_R u ok?_**It read. Olena nodded to herself, but her brow furrowed. She sent him a quick message back.

_**Yeah, never**_** better.** _Haha,_ she thought. _Never indeed._

"Olena..." Meredith said, making sure Olena was still aware of her presense in the room.

"I'm fine," she lied. There was no way that she could tell Meredith what really happneed to her. that she'd been attacked by her dark cousins, who were supposed to be a continent away. That one of the people she was supposed to protect had aided in her death. That she'd raped by one of the cousins that had been scent to kill her, and that she was somehow pregnant. Olena could no reveal her worst fears and the fears of her family. And the fact that they'd come true.

"Look, remember when I said you could talk me if you wanted? When you were ready? Well, right now, I need you to clue me in he-"

"It's nothing you need to worry about." Olena interrupted. Meredith furrowed her brow. She still wouldn't look at her. Olena wasn't going to let Meredith see her in a moment of weakness. She was afraid, tired, and worried that if anyone found out, then Hell might break loose (in the metaphorical sense, hopefully).

She put her phone in her pocket, and her clothes in her bag. Olena sat on the bench, pulling on her boots.

"Thank you, for helping me. I felt like I was patient zero in some kind of biochemical zombie outbreak. I guess I'm the first to puke out my guts at practice and be attacked on a campus within at least a two month period." she made a humorless chuckle.

Meredith wasn't buying it. "olena, don't lie to me. I heard you, and I saw your face just now, when you were on that mat. You looked scared, and worried. Maybe I can help you. I know a thing or two about pregnancies. My mom taught me f-"

_"YA v poryadke. YA ne nuzhadyus' v Vashey pomoschchi."_ Olena's voice was hard, but in the end, it trembled. "I'm fine, Meredith." her voice was filled with wavering finality.

Meredith sighed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. 'Like I said, I'm here if you need me. And I promise not to tell the others." With that, her roommate left her alone in the locker room, with her own, self-pitying and self-degrating thoughts.

He watched her from across the quad. Her head was down, her face was pale, and she was moving quickly, like she had somewhere to be. He supposed she did, considering what she'd been through. She hadn't noticed him, even with his eyes on her directly. Usually, she would look arund, as if she knew she was being watched.

But her guard was down, and so, he stared freely. Her aura was dark bluish gray- almost black- twinged with fright and worry. _Was she trying to get away from something or someone?_

Her eyes were dark, not light like they used to be. The bright light was stolen from her beautiful amber-topaz eyes a month and a half ago. He shook his dark head, and moved around the tree he was stnading next to so that it blocked her view of him. He looked down at the message that had popped up on his screen.

**Kak dela?**_** How goes it?**_

_**According to plan,**_he responded._** It's taking a little time, but I've got the situation under control.**_

Looking up from the screen, he watched her pick up the pace as she moved closer and closer to him. He was sure she had seen him when he wasn't looking, which was fine by him. It wasn't as if she couldn't see him, sitting with his back to the tree behind him.

But her head was still down when she moved past him. So, she hadn't seen him after all. He knew it would take a minute or two for the text to be sent, so he pushed off the tree, and kept him eyes on her as she moved into the building. He followed shortly after her.

Olena took he deep breathe, and her body adjusted from the crisp night air to the warm air of the library. It had helped to fill her lungs, push out the acid taste of the vomit, and cleared her thoughts. She felt the wide eyes on the librarian as she moved toward the stairs. Olena was glad the young woman didn't say anything, probably more out of fear of her than anything else.

She was quiet as she took off her jacket and scarf, and moved up the first flight of stairs. There wasn't really anyone there, just like a couple of days ago, when she'd had her meltdown in the upper room. That was the last time she'd been in here, and part of her hoped Aleksandyr was here too.

It was their usual meeting place, since no one really used it as much as they did. Seeing a teacher, she went down a row, grabbing afew books on the way to make herself look busy before she moved up the next flight of stairs. Getting into the room was second nature, but sh e found no one there.

Olena sighed, her small hopes dashed. Where was Aleksandyr when she needed him? Olena put the books on the table, not bothering to look at them, and sat herself down at the table against the wall. The chair was comfortable, and she immediately buried her face in her crossed arms.

_Gde vy, Aleksandyr?_ Olena thought desperately, tears welling in her eyes, blurring her vision.

"What is going on? Why is this happening?" she allowed herself to say these few words out loud, shaking her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sniffed. But she damn well knew what was going on. She knew why this was happening.

The Varinskis had found her, but they hadn't made thier presence known since that night... The night that she'd- she cut into her own thoughts. She couldn't allow herself think that they'd killed her, and yet, deep down, she knew it was true. Konstantin had taught his children to protect themselves. If she had died, then she would have gone to Hell, right? She should be burning in the intense infernos, or being tortured in the ninth cricle somewhere...

Olena chuckled. She shook her head, and chuckled humorlessly, which turned into a laugh. Olena's body shook, and the tears feel, but she was unaware of when her pitiful, chastizing laughs turned into sobs. And she didn't how long she'd felt those warm arms around her shoulders.

_"YA takoy idiot,"_ her voice was small as she buried her face in his shoulder. _"Zhalkiy, bespoleznyy."_

"No, no. Don't say that," he whispered to her. Aleksandyr held her gently, rocking her as if she were a small child. _You're alright; you're fine. I'm here now._

A warm sense of protection slowly moved over her, and Olena closed her eyes. How was it that she was probably this boy could be past all the crappiness in her. Aleksandyr was like that sometimes. When she was in a foul mood, or feeling sorry for herself like she was now, he always had a way to make her feel better about herself.

_I'm here now. _The voice was in her head, not out of it.

"How did you know where I was?" she asked him. He stilled, then started rocking her again. He was running his fingers through her hair as he did so.

"Believe it or not...I heard you calling me." He shrugged Olena looked up at him wih confused eyes.

"But, I didn't call you..." she said dumbly. Aleksandyr smiled, and looked like he was about to laugh, bu didn't. The look on her face- the wide, fearful, sad eyes, the tears running down her soft cheeks- the ample bottom lip that slightly quivered with each breath (which he ran his thumb across several times) -gave him pause. His electric eyes softened.

"We're bonded, right? So maybe that means..." he waited a minute for her to finish the sentance for him, but he went on. "Maybe we can read each others' thoughts?" it sounded like he was suggesting it.

Olena would be oddly okay with that, considering what she'd been through, and what she was going through now. She simply nodded, then looked away.

"I heard you calling me, so... I figured you would be here." Aleksandyr shifted, and she noticed that he had her in his arms as he sat in the chair she'd preoccupied. Olena sat up in his lap, leaning away from him. She felt her face heat up, and she suddenly felt embarrassed at the fact that he could have smelled the puke on her breath.

That really brought life to her face she quickly moved away from him, and into the chair by the wall. Aleksandyr looked confused, somewhat, but didn't say anything. With that thought it mind, she took the water from Alberta out of her bag, and nearly chugged the rest of it. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Olena looked at her best friend in this entire shitcase that was her life at the moment. She knew a boy just like his at home in Blythe. Charlie was his name. He was her age, like Aleksandyr. The two of them were a lot alike.

Olena stared at Aleksandyr. His black hair was getting long, and she could swear that was her black headband he was wearing. Aleksandyr's blue eyes stared right back at her, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable in his all-seeing gaze. She squirmed in the chair, but she finally shook her head and looked away.

"Nothing. It's just been a really long day for me," Olena forced a smile that was nowhere near her eyes. "A really long couple of days." She looked at him again. He didn't look like he was buying it, but he let it go.

His phone buzzed, and he furrowed his brow. He looked up at her, but didn't reply to whatever the message had been. He sighed, looking at her again. His eyes were filled with worry, and she couldn't help but feel that it was for her. Since she felt the need to do so, Olena put her hand over hers.

"Aleks, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I just needed a good cry, is all. You know us girls and our over-active tear ducts." Olena stood up, and gave him a pretty smile. _"YA v poryadke, Aleks datchitka."_ She spoke the words fluently, seeing as how she was Russian.

Olena bent over him and kissed his forehead before turning to leave. Aleksandyr stopped her with a hand holding her small wrist. He pulled her foreward, putting his forehead to hers. Her otherworldly eyes bore into his as he stood to his full height. Aleksandyr still held her wrist in his hand, and used to other to cradle the back of her head.

Olena started to furrow her brow, but she didn't say anything as Aleksandyr bent his head toward her. He held her close as he closed his eyes and slowly ran his lips across hers. Olena gasped, not expecting the warm feelings that flooded through thier bond. Aleksandyr used the moment to fully kiss her, and she was pulled closer to him.

Olena felt intensly warm and unsteady, and she figured part of the reason he was kissing her so... passionately like this was due to the pent up feeling the both of them knew shouldn't be accessed here. Aleksnadyr didn't seem to care as he kissed her, and Olena found neither did she. He was an expert at this, but it was over too soon, and she was felt feeling bereft, and slightly empty.

He stood back, and looked at her, eyes wide. "I'm... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that..." Olena blushed, shaking her head. She put her fingers to her lips, and she slightly smiled. Aleksandyr started to smile as well.

"That was..." Olena shook her head, backing away toward the door.

"Yeah," Aleksnadyr agreed. His voice was soft. "I know."

With that, Olena turned around and left the room, and eventually the library, feeling a hell of a lot better than she had walking in.


End file.
